The Family in The Tree
by K. Elisabeth
Summary: When a husband, wife, and child are found hung in a tree in Florida, Brennan meets a family she never expected to find... her mother's. But they are all in greater danger than they know. Can they come together, with Booth and Max, to solve the case? BB
1. Tell Everybody I'm On My Way

_Other arms reach out to me  
Other eyes smile tenderly  
Still in peaceful dreams I see  
The road leads back to you..._

_- Georgia on My Mind, Ray Charles_

* * *

Brennan leaned back into the reclining leather chair as a small Vietnamese woman polished her toes, listening to Amy chatter incessantly on her right. Her eyes were shut, but she couldn't block out the noise—she just nodded when the time seemed right, and neglected to voice any of her own opinions. It didn't matter; Amy didn't seem like the type of woman who actually wanted you to voice your opinions, just to listen to hers.

She mentally admonished herself for not being fair enough to her sister in law; after all, she had insisted that Brennan come with her and the girls for a spa day, a sort of "family bonding" experience.

"I feel like I don't really know you, and we're sisters now," Amy had insisted over the phone. "Plus the girls really want to see their aunt." Angela nodded insistently as she listened to the speakerphone conversation, encouraging her friend to take the day off from dead people and just enjoy herself. She sighed and agreed, and it had landed her here.

"Aunt Tempe." Hayley summoned Brennan's attention back to the present, and she opened her eyes and looked down at the little girl on her left, decked out in a fuzzy pink spa robe.

"Hmm?"

"What color should I get on my nails?" Brennan looked down at the wide array of polishes offered to the girl on a tray, and raised her brows.

"Uhm…" she said, not really sure what to say. She had never in her life been to a spa of any sort—her idea of a relaxing day was sweatpants and a t-shirt, going over the rough draft of her latest book, or maybe watching Booth and Parker play football in the park. It was as if her life was suddenly filled with other people's children, and they all (for an unknown reason that puzzled her) seemed to enjoy her company. Of course she enjoyed spending time with Booth's son, and her nieces were lovely girls, but she never felt a particularly strong connection to any of them.

"Well?" Hayley asked again. Brennan finally shrugged.

"I don't know, don't most girls your age usually prefer pink?" she asked. Hayley gave her a look that suggested she was trying very hard not to roll her eyes.

"Well yeah," she said. "But there's like, six different _kinds_ of pink."

"Oh," Brennan said. Emma saved her from having to deliberate between the different shades by picking for both of them, a vibrant shade that looked fit to trim the Barbie Dream House.

"This is fun, isn't it?" Amy asked a few minutes later, breaking what Brennan had thought was a rather enjoyable lull in conversation.

"It is nice," she responded, not knowing what else to say. Over the past four hours she had been rubbed, scrubbed, peeled, soaked, and waxed in more places than she knew she had. Most of the experience had been comfortable (bar the waxing), but throughout the duration she couldn't help but think of all the work she could be doing at the lab—there were over a hundred unidentified skeletons in Limbo awaiting identification, even if they were between cases. Angela had used the phrase 'workaholic' in her appeal to Brennan's girlier nature, insisting she take the time with her newfound family. It was the idea of spending time with her brother's new wife and daughters, more so than the spa aspect, that finally won her over.

"Russ warned me you're not really into the _girly_ stuff, but I told him, what woman doesn't love a spa day?" Amy said, giving Brennan what seemed to be a knowing smile. Before she was forced to smile or nod or in some way respond to the statement, she was saved by a familiar voice booming down the hall.

"No, I know, I just need to talk to my partner… what do you mean my eyebrows?" Brennan smiled her first true smile of the day, and before long she saw Booth's head and broad shoulders peek into the room.

"Well don't you look relaxed?" he asked, looking thoroughly amused.

"So what's wrong with your eyebrows?" she asked with a smirk, wiping the smile from his face. He waved to Amy and the girls in turn as he stepped gingerly over the trays of nail polish and foot scrub, looking as awkward as a bull in a china shop.

"Nothing," he responded. "But I have something for you."

"Murder victims?" she asked expectantly. The woman working on her foot dropped it suddenly, giving her a wary look. Amy groaned.

"Yep!" Booth said jovially. "Three of them, in Florida."

"You get to go to the beach?" Hayley whined. "No fair!"

"I don't think we'll be spending much time at the beach," Brennan said to her niece, turning her attention back to her partner. "When are we leaving?"

"Now," he said, grabbing her by her upper arm and hoisting her out of the spa chair. "Get dressed and meet me outside, we'll swing by your place to get you packed and then we've got a five-fifteen flight out of here."

"What time is it now?" she asked, having noticed when she first arrived that spas, like casinos, don't have clocks.

"Four."

"That's kind of short notice, Booth," she groused, standing one-footed like a flamingo as she picked the cotton balls from between her toes.

"Hey, your people made the arrangements, not mine," he said. He turned suddenly to the small woman who had been staring at him since he entered the room. "Can I help you with something?"

"Your face," she said, reaching up and touching his cheek. "Very smooth for man. You come to spa often?" He pulled his face away from her reach, looking affronted.

"No!" he answered loudly. "No, I don't. I just… I have good skin. I'm going to wait outside now." He left, and hadn't been waiting long before he saw Brennan emerge from the spa, looking harried. She got into the SUV and sighed, shaking her head.

"I don't know what it is about spas that people find so relaxing," she said. Booth smiled.

"What, you weren't enjoying yourself? I thought girls just wanted to have fun," he teased. She scowled.

"I only went because Amy asked me to," she insisted. "She wanted to spend time together, as a family."

"Well that's normal," Booth said in Amy's defense. "You are her sister in law now, and the aunt to her girls. She wants to spend time together, to get to know you."

"I know," Brennan said. "I just don't see the allure in all that."

"Well, you'll be happy to know that where we're going in Florida, there won't be any spas for miles," Booth said. "From what they've told me, we're going to be in BFE."

"I don't know what that means," Brennan said plainly. Booth sighed.

"Nevermind," he said. "Just take my word on this one… by the time we're done working this case, you'll be itching to spend time with your family, even if you have to suffer through an afternoon at the spa to do it."

Brennan packed quick and light, knowing their hotel would have a laundry room if they ended up staying more than a few days. Booth waited patiently in the car for her—she could hear the bass thudding as she came down the apartment steps, suitcase rolling behind her. They drove all the way to the airport like that, with the music filling the quiet spaces. Brennan enjoyed the opportunity not to have to fill the void with aimless conversation; not that her conversations with Booth were usually aimless, but she had spent the entire afternoon chatting, and she was verbally spent for the day.

They barely caught their flight on time, sliding into their first class seats just before they closed the plane doors. Booth settled into the reclining leather seat, happy as a pig.

"I think your people should make our arrangements from now on," Booth said as he forked a small, springy dinner salad.

"Why's that? Because you're actually allowed to be in first class this time?" Brennan asked.

"Exactly," he said. "When the FBI makes my arrangements, they put me in the cheapest seat the plane has. Usually it's the one above the engine, so I feel like if we go down, I'm going to explode." Brennan snorted.

"In reality, if a plane goes down from thirty thousand feet, everyone is going to die," she said. "It doesn't matter where you sit." Booth gave her a look.

"Thanks for that reassuring info," he grumbled, shoving the rest of his dinner roll into his mouth. "I wonder why the Jeffersonian paid my way anyway." When Brennan didn't say anything he looked over at her, and saw her smiling lightly as she adamantly refused to meet his gaze.

"Did you have something to do with that?" he asked. She shrugged.

"It might have been suggested to Goodman that since you work so closely with the Jeffersonian, you should be endowed some of our travel perks," she said off-handedly. "He's the one who put the order through to the financial office, though, so thank him." Booth shook his head and smiled, leaning in and bumping her shoulder with his.

"Thanks, Bones," he said.

"You're welcome," she replied, bumping him back.

The vast sprawl of lights beneath the plane told Brennan they had arrived in Jacksonville, and before long they were back on the ground and collecting their luggage. As they waited at the rental desk to collect the keys for their car, Booth read off an informational pamphlet.

"Hey, did you know Jacksonville is the largest city in land area in the continental United States?" he asked as he read off a bulleted list of fun facts.

"Did you know the city was named for the first military governor of the territory, Andrew Jackson, who would later be elected the seventh president of the United States?" Brennan asked, without having to access any informative flyers. Booth frowned.

"How do you know that?" he asked. "Or, more importantly, _why_?" She shrugged.

"I don't know, I just do," she said, signing for the car and taking the keys. Booth plucked the keys out of her hand, giving her a smug look.

"Just like you know I always drive, right?" he said. She hrmphed.

"Let's just go," she said, allowing him to lead the way through the airport. "I'm exhausted."

"Oh what, did that spa day wear you out?" Booth teased. "Don't worry, tomorrow you'll be back to dead bodies and murderers… rest and relaxation."

* * *

**A/N:** So, what are your thoughts so far? Like it, hate it, interested at all? Leave a review and let me know. :) We'll get into the actual case and "meet the family" starting in the next chapter or so.

Also, I want to thank Melissa for helping me out with getting the plot organized beforehand. You're a lifesaver!


	2. Cut Down and Taken From Us

**A/N:** Woohoo, I'm glad you guys are on board with this! I've been thinking about writing this fic for a while now, and I just finally decided it was the right time to get started on it. No worries, I'll still be making regular updates on _Mirror of a Bad Dream_. But right now, this is my new brainchild. :)

Not a whole lot went on in the first chapter, obviously, but now we're going to jump head-first into the case and other interesting things. Oh, and because someone asked... BFE stands for "Bum Fuck Egypt". It basically means out in the middle of nowhere, especially if you're in an area that doesn't get cell phone reception. Another synonymous phrase would be how Angela put it... "Past where Jesus lost his sandals."

Anyway, on with the fic. Enjoy!

* * *

_Give me a tin roof,  
a front porch and a gravel road  
And that's home to me,  
Feels like home to me..._

_- Boondocks, Little Big Town_

* * *

The hotel phone rang at seven o'clock sharp, shaking Brennan from what had been a very fulfilling night of sleep. In fact, she had not wanted it to end so soon—she ignored the phone for a full minute, until it stopped ringing, and then began ringing again. Those wake-up callers were quite persistent.

"Hmmm?" she answered, picking up the receiver and setting it down on the pillow next to her head.

"Gooood mornin'," an entirely too cheerful voice chirped over the line. "This is the seven o'clock wake-up call for Dr. Temperance Brennan and Agent Seeley Booth."

"This is Dr. Brennan," she mumbled.

"Great!" the voice said. "Just so y'all know, there's a free continental breakfast down in the lobby 'til ten. Have a great day!" With that the line cut off, and Brennan slid the phone back onto the cradle and groaned. She pulled the sheets up around her neck and shoulders, inhaling their scent. There was something she secretly loved about the way hotel rooms smelled; something in the sheets or the towels or the little cheap soap bars in the bathroom. She felt like she could just sit and smell it all day.

Finally she threw the sheets back and sat up, hanging her legs over the edge of the bed. Their room was largely filled up by the two full sized beds, separated by a nightstand and faced by his-and-hers armoires. On the bed opposite of hers, her partner had yet to stir—for an ex army man, he was a terribly heavy sleeper. She sat for an easy minute, watching his chest rise and fall with each soft sleeping breath. Knowing they had a drive to the crime scene, she finally got up and crossed the room to the curtains, yanking the chord and pulling them back. The room flooded with bright sunlight, even this early in the morning, and finally Booth stirred.

"Good morning," she said when his face finally emerged from the covers, squinting through the bright light at her.

"Hey," he said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "God, what time is it?"

"Seven," she replied.

"That's a damn bright sun for seven AM."

"Welcome to Florida," she said, unzipping the suitcase she had dumped at the foot of her bed the night previous and digging out a pair of jeans and a top. "So where exactly is the crime scene? You never said."

"It's nowhere," he said, reaching his arms up and stretching his back with a series of pops. "Literally. About forty-five minutes from here is a little town off the river, Green Cove Springs. From there we take some county road for a while, another half hour or so, and then the sheriff gave me a map of dirt roads to follow until we find the place."

"Sounds rural," Brennan said through the cracked door.

"No joke," Booth said, letting himself in once she had dressed and squeezing toothpaste onto his toothbrush. "Get this, they told me to _follow the railroad tracks_. Some directions."

"Do you want me to drive?" Brennan asked through a mouth full of toothpaste. Booth shook his head as he battled her for the mirror.

"No," he said resolutely. "You'll get lost."

"I'm an excellent driver, Booth," she insisted, spitting the foam into the sink and rinsing her brush.

"I'm sure," he said. "But today, you're in the grandma seat."

After a quick free breakfast, they packed the few belongings they had taken out of their suitcases and tossed them into the back of the rental before taking off. For the sake of expediency, they would sleep in a motel in Green Cove Springs for the rest of their stay. Booth veered in and out of Jacksonville traffic, spewing long strings of curse words whenever appropriate.

"Jesus Christ," he swore loudly when a passing driver nearly clipped the front end of the rental. "People here don't know how to drive!"

"According to a GMAC Insurance study, twenty percent of Florida drivers would fail their driver's test if made to re-take it."

"I don't doubt it," Booth grumbled.

"But," Brennan added. "Over twenty-five percent of drivers in D.C. would fail. So technically, Floridians are better drivers than D.C. metropolitans."

"You know, you're starting to sound like that one intern of yours," he pointed out. "That Nigel-Murray guy I think, the random fact kid. Where do you get this stuff from?"

"I read, Booth," she said. "Some of us actually enjoy learning just for the sake of learning."

Booth silently mocked her, and she shook her head and relegated herself to watching the scenery pass them by for the remainder of their drive. The outside world changed rapidly from the city's steel and concrete into quaint suburbs, and then suddenly to large, unoccupied expanses of nothing. The landscape was incredibly flat, but blocked by barriers of oak and pine and shorter, rougher trees and underbrush. By the time they had been driving for an hour or so the sun had reached an oppressive position in the sky, making everything look bright and somehow harsher.

"This isn't exactly what you picture when you think of Florida," Brennan admitted as they passed a sign that told them they were five miles from the Green Cove Springs exit.

"It's called scrub, Bones," Booth said. "You were down here with Sully a year or two ago, you aught to know that."

"We were in South Florida," she corrected. "Once you got outside of Miami it was mostly palm trees and marshes. North Florida is a completely different ecological environment." Booth half-listened as he turned onto the Green Cove Springs exit. They passed through what one might call a small town at best—Brennan had hardly registered the fact that they were in a town before they had already passed through it—and turned onto a smooth county road, continuing southward.

"This is just stupid," Booth growled half an hour later, stopping the car at the intersection of two limestone dirt roads and eyeballing his hand-scribbled directions. "I don't know how anyone expects me to find anything with directions like these."

"You could let me drive," Brennan offered. He snorted.

"If I can't make sense of these directions, what makes you think you can?" he asked. She gave him an annoyed look.

"What, you think just because I'm a woman, I can't read directions as well as a man?" she asked.

"I didn't say that."

"You implied it."

"I did not!"

"Then why won't you let me drive?"

"I just… fine," he said, suddenly thrusting the directions into her hands and opening the car door. "Fine. You drive, see where you get us. It's not like you can get us any more lost than we already are out here." Part of Booth's statement was true; the road they were on was surrounded by a thick overgrowth of oaks, whose massive arms stretched overhead of them. He felt like he was in a scene out of _Heart of Darkness_.

"Good," Brennan said, switching seats with her partner and smiling despite herself. "Let's see… it says here we're supposed to follow the tracks to a crossroad, then take the crossroad straight out to the river's edge, then follow it left until we find… what does that say… _a bunch of dirt roads and mailboxes_. Well that doesn't sound so hard."

"Alright, Kurtz," Booth said, leaning back into his seat and crossing his arms. "Take it away." Brennan put the vehicle into drive and backtracked, all the way back to the railroad tracks, then continued to follow them until she found the crossroad.

"I guess your short-cut wasn't a short-cut after all," she said with an air of smugness as she turned onto the road.

"It's right there on the map," Booth grumbled, thoroughly annoyed with her success. "You can see it, it should go straight through."

"Right," she said, turning down a road that ran parallel to the lazy St. John's river and following it until they found the promised roads and mailboxes. Turning down the second road, the car bucked and growled as she steered it down the sandy, potholed path. Eventually the narrow road opened up into a grassy clearing, where a fence of yellow police tape surrounded a modest doublewide trailer. Just beyond the home, the grass slowly turned into sugary white sand, which lead to a dock that stretched out into the water.

"Agent Booth?" an officer asked as they approached the scene. Booth nodded as they stepped over the tape fence, taking the handshake offered to him by the man. "Phil McGrady, Clay County SO."

"Nice to meet you," Booth said. "This is my partner, Dr. Temperance Brennan."

"Pleasure," McGrady said, tipping his hat to her. "Did y'all have an alright trip? I hope you didn't get lost."

"It was fine," Booth said, determinedly ignoring Brennan's air of smugness. "So what's the story? I didn't get a whole lot out of your guys on the phone." Officer McGrady jerked his head back towards the property, signaling them to follow him.

"Well, we got a call night before last about a disturbance in the area. Gunshots, they said," McGrady explained. "That's strange in itself, since there ain't many folks out around here, and most of 'em along this part of the river are all related anyway."

"Who called in the disturbance?" Booth asked.

"Dunno," McGrady responded. "Anonymous. Anyway, we sent an officer to drive out around here and see if they heard anything, but we got nothin'. The next mornin' I came out just to follow up, and found 'em hangin' here." They stopped in front of an exceptional oak tree a few yards from the trailer. Its branches were thick and low, and heavy with tangles of Spanish moss. They could see the remains of three ropes hanging from one of the lower branches, whatever had been hung from them obviously cut down.

"Them as in, the victims?" Brennan asked. McGrady nodded.

"Yep," he said. "Abigail Armstrong, female, twenty-six. Robert Armstrong, male, thirty. Laura Armstrong, female, four years old." He listed them off sadly, then added, "Dead dog, too."

"In the tree?" Booth asked. The officer shook his head.

"Naw, in the yard," he said. "Prob'ly the guy killed 'im just to shut him up. Clean shot, right through the head. And you know somethin' incredible?"

"What?" Booth asked. McGrady seemed to look off in the distance momentarily before revealing his knowledge.

"There was a baby," he said. "In the house, sleepin' in her crib."

"Alive?" Brennan asked.

"Well by sleepin' I didn't mean dead," the officer cracked. "Yes, alive. Not a scratch on her. Isn't that somethin'?" Booth nodded.

"And your guys found this yesterday morning?" Booth asked. McGrady nodded.

"Yessir," he said. "I was the one who came by, I found 'em."

"Where are the bodies now?" Brennan asked. "Does your county have a forensics department?" McGrady snorted.

"Sugar," he said. "Clay County barely has a sheriff's department to begin with. We sent 'em to the forensics field office in St. John's County, that's the closest one to us. They got a real crime lab up in Jacksonville, we can have 'em sent there if you like."

"Yes, please," she said, not sure whether 'sugar' was a condescending remark or a term of endearment.

"Just from what we could tell at the scene, looks like they were shot first, then hung," McGrady explained. "All three of 'em got bullet holes in the head. That's probably your cause of death."

"Same kind of bullet holes as the dog?" Booth asked. McGrady nodded.

"We matched the shells," McGrady said. "Most of the scene's been cleared, you can look around at what you like, then come back to the station in Green Cove and we'll show you the photos." McGrady left the two of them at the scene, police car kicking up clouds of sand and limestone as he went. Booth walked the perimeter of the house while Brennan surveyed the yard for any forensic evidence left behind, and they were fairly well engrossed in their work until they heard another car coming down the dirt road. It was a dirty red truck, jacked up about as high as a truck could go, and Booth settled his hand instinctively on his gun as they pulled to a stop in the yard.

When the truck doors opened, two women stepped out into the grass. One was a tall, solidly built woman who looked to be in her mid 50s, brown hair streaked with grey and pulled back into a thin ponytail. Her skin was dark and weathered, but she had a fierce look on her face when she surveyed Booth and Brennan from a distance. The other was a younger woman, no older than her mid 20s, with a sour expression and several piercings up and down her ears. They both wore cut-off jean shorts and tank tops, in an effort to beat the oppressive Florida heat.

"Who the hell are you?" the older woman asked as she approached Booth. He unholstered his gun, holding it out in front of him for safety's sake.

"Miss, I need you to take a step back," Booth said, glancing at his partner out of the corner of his eye.

"And I need you to calm down with pointin' guns at people!" the woman said irately, taking a few cautious steps back and holding her hands out in front of her like she was approaching an angry dog. "Who d'you think you are anyway?"

"Agent Seeley Booth, FBI," Booth said, flipping out his badge. "And you?"

"Lydia Reid," the older woman said, placing her hands on her hips as she eyed Booth with a combination of mistrust and strong dislike.

"And you?" Booth asked the younger woman.

"Sarah Leigh Donnelly," she said, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly. She had tattoos on the insides of her wrists and on the outside of her left arm, which weren't distinguishable from a distance.

"What's your business here?" Booth asked. This seemed to set Lydia off.

"What's _my_ business here? This is my niece's house," she said. "Or it was, anyway. I came to clean up the place and get some things of hers. Ever since y'all's people came through here, looks like a damn hurricane tore it apart." Booth holstered his gun, knowing the two of them weren't a physical threat to him or his partner.

"What's your niece's name?" he asked.

"Abby," Lydia answered. "Abby Armstrong. Her momma was gonna come do it but she's so tore up about the whole thing, she just can't bring herself to do it." Booth nodded in understanding—they seemed legitimate, if coarse.

"Alright," he said. "My partner needs to look through the house for evidence first, then you can start going through her things. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions in the meantime?" Lydia shrugged, taking a seat on the wooden steps leading up to the front door and pulling out a pack of cigarettes.

"Well, go on," she said, holding the cigarette away from her as Brennan passed them going into the house.

"Okay Lydia, Sarah…"

"Sarah Leigh," she corrected with a touch of attitude. "Not Sarah."

"Sorry," Booth said. "Sarah _Leigh_. Officer McGrady said most of the people who live in this area are related to one another. Do you live in the area?"

"Two houses down," Lydia said, motioning in the general direction left of them. "Me, my sisters, most of our kids, we all live up and down this part of the river."

"I see," Booth said, taking mental notes. "Were you at home the night Robert, Abigail, and Laura were killed?" Lydia nodded, while Sarah Leigh shook her head.

"Where were you?" he asked.

"Work," she replied.

"Where do you work?"

"The Hole," Sarah Leigh responded. "I'm a bartender."

"Where's The Hole at?"

"Green Cove," she said. "Well, just outside it." Booth nodded, turning his attention to Lydia.

"So you were at home that night?" he asked again. She nodded. "And how far away from here would you say your house is?"

"'Bout a mile down the road," she said.

"Did you hear anything out of the ordinary that night?" he asked. She shook her head.

"Not a thing," she said.

"No gunshots?" he asked. She shrugged.

"You said out of the ordinary," she said. "That ain't out of the ordinary. People shoot off all the time out here."

"Ah," he said.

"Yeah," she said. "But I don't remember hearin' much that night, no. Just the dogs goin' off at one point."

"When was that?" he asked. She shrugged.

"I dunno, two, maybe three in the morning."

"Alright, thank you," Booth said, wiping beads of sweat from his brow and upper lip. "That's all for now. I'll see if my partner is done, then you can go in." He went into the trailer and found Brennan sifting through the contents of overturned tables, emptied drawers, and strewn stacks of papers.

"She wasn't kidding when she said they tore this place apart," Brennan lamented. "I don't know how they expect me to find any evidence in this."

"Those relatives of the victims? Boy are they something else," Booth said quietly, motioning towards the closed door. "Can you imagine being related to people like that?" Brennan shook her head.

"They make dad and Russ look cultured," she admitted. Booth laughed.

"And that's saying something," he said. "So we're done here?" Brennan nodded.

"For now," she said. "I want to look at the bodies, and go from there." Booth opened the door, letting the two of them out into the sweltering heat. Lydia had finished her cigarette and was leaning against the side of the home, arms crossed, staring out into the distance. Sarah Leigh sat on the steps, her face resting in her hands.

"Okay, it's all yours," Booth said to the women. "Unless Dr. Brennan has any questions. Bones?" He turned to her, and she shook her head.

"No, I'm good," she said. She noticed that Lydia was giving her a very peculiar, scrutinizing sort of look, the way one looks at a picture of someone they recognize but can't pin.

"Can I help you?" Brennan asked. Lydia seemed to catch herself, and shook her head vigorously.

"No, no," she said. "You just… you just look familiar, that's all. So y'all are done now, we can go in?" Booth nodded.

"We're done," he said. "Thank you ladies for your cooperation, it was nice meeting you both." He extended his hand out to shake theirs, and Brennan followed suit. When she shook Lydia's hand, however, the woman did not let it go. Instead, she stared down at the ring on Brennan's right ring finger.

"Where'd you get that?" she asked, looking up at Brennan with what appeared to be anger in her eyes.

"What?" Brennan asked.

"Where'd you get that? The ring," she said. "Where'd you get it? Who sold it to you?"

"Nobody," she said, attempting to withdraw her hand but unable to wrench it from the woman's calloused grasp.

"Was it a pawn shop? Or an antique store?" Lydia asked feverishly, an almost manic look etched into her face. "Where'd you buy it?"

"I didn't," Brennan said. "It was my mother's." Lydia suddenly dropped Brennan's hand as if it were on fire, taking a step back. Her eyes were wide as she scanned Brennan's face, back and forth, absorbing every bit of it. After a long moment, her mouth fell open, and she slapped her thigh.

"I knew it!" she positively shouted, her voice echoing across the flat grassy stretch. "Holy hell, I knew it! I knew those eyes, that nose. Holy shit. Holy shit! Oh Christ…" The woman grabbed her head between her hands and shook it, as if suddenly overcome with a concept too large to comprehend. She kept her eyes trained on Brennan's face, and Brennan grew more and more uncomfortable.

"Ruth," Lydia finally said, this time her voice nearly a whisper. She stepped right up to Brennan, staring unblinkingly into her eyes. "You're Ruthie's girl, aren't you? Aren't you?" Brennan's mouth fell slightly open, and she looked to Booth out of the corner of her eye, hoping he would throw her some kind of a line. He seemed just as confused as she was.

"How do you…" she started, but was cut off.

"You gotta be," Lydia said, reaching out and grabbing Brennan's upper arms in her hands. "The oldest girl, that's how it goes. Oldest daughter to oldest daughter, right? You were Ruthie's oldest girl, that's how you got it. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I can't believe it's you!"

Brennan's brain, which had been temporarily numbed, suddenly began making rapid-fire connections. The ring. Her father. The video. Her mother. Her mother's sisters. Three of them.

_Show them the ring, they'll know who you are._

"Who are you?" she asked again.

"Ruth's my sister," Lydia said. "Your mother, she's my big sister. I'm your aunt."

* * *

**A/N:** Oh snapskies! Leave a review and let me know what you think. :)


	3. A Dream is Gone, But Where There's Hope

_This is where the rubber meets the road  
This is where the cream is gonna rise  
This is what you really didn't know  
This is where the truth don't lie..._

_- Find Out Who Your Friends Are, Tracy Lawrence_

* * *

"I can't believe I'm really seein' you," Lydia said, smiling and shaking her head in awe. "Your momma sent me a picture of you when you were about two, I guess, and that was the last I ever heard of y'all. How old are you now?"

"Thirty-three," Brennan replied, still trying to process the past twenty seconds. "You're… my mom's sister?"

"Second oldest," Lydia replied. "Two years younger than Ruth. Your mom and I were like piss 'n vinegar growing up, let me tell you. Where are you livin' now? Where's she?"

"I, uh…" For once, Brennan was at a loss for words. It was an overwhelming and peculiar feeling, one she was not accustomed to. She looked again to Booth, who shrugged his chin and held his hands out in a gesture of emptiness.

"Christ, Lydia, let her breathe," Sarah Leigh finally said, pulling a packet of gum out of her back pocket and pressing a piece through the tin foil. She gave Brennan a sheepish look as she chomped the gum. "It's Nicorette, sorry."

"That's… fine," Brennan said, chewing the inside of her cheek. "I'm living in Washington D.C. now, I work at the Jeffersonian."

"That big museum?" Sarah Leigh asked. Brennan nodded.

"My dad, he's in D.C. too." Lydia swore at the mention of Max.

"Son of a bitch," she said. "So Ruthie finally got some sense and left his sorry ass then?" Brennan bit her bottom lip.

"She's dead," she finally said. "She died, about fifteen years ago." Lydia's face paled, and she shook her head, resting one hand on her hip and running her fingers through her hair with the other.

"Shit," she said quietly, shutting her eyes and pressing her thumb and finger into their corners. "Let's go inside, it's… it's hot out." The four of them entered the ransacked trailer, and Lydia busied herself dumping piles of papers and knick-knacks from the couch onto the floor, clearing space to sit. Booth pulled over his own chair from the dinette set, and Sarah Leigh dropped to the floor, crossing her legs Indian style and resting her elbows on her knees. Somewhere an air conditioner hummed, occasionally letting lose a bang or rumble, and for a while that was the only sound between them. Lydia finally let out a long, loud sigh.

"Brennan," she finally said, looking up at her. "Max's last name was Keenan. What happened?"

"We had to go underground," Brennan explained. "They got into… they robbed banks," she finally blurted out. "They robbed banks and then they got in over their heads and they had to lay loose…"

"Low," Booth corrected. "Lay _low_."

"Right," Brennan said. "They had to disappear, so they took assumed names, all of us did. I'm Temperance, by the way." Lydia did not seem surprised by the news, just saddened. She looked Brennan up and down slowly.

"Not Joy, huh?" she asked. Brennan shook her head.

"Not Joy," she said.

"And your brother?" she asked. Brennan smiled.

"Russ," she said.

"And Ruth?" Lydia finally asked.

"Christine." Lydia sucked her teeth, shaking her head and jiggling one of her legs in anger.

"First Charlie, now Ruth," Lydia said. "I swear to God—"

"Don't swear to God," Sarah Leigh objected in the background.

"Child, do not tell me what to do or I _swear to God_ I'll beat you like a red-headed stepchild," Lydia snapped. "I swear if I ever see Max Keenan again, I'll gut that son of a bitch like a goddamn fish."

"It wasn't his fault," Brennan defended, shaking her head anxiously. "He didn't kill my mother, he wasn't responsible." Lydia gave Brennan a mutinous glare.

"Max Keenan got my cousin Charlie killed when he was twenty-one years old, Temperance," Lydia hissed. "Twenty-one, and 'cause of what Max got him mixed up in, he's dead. Max Keenan good as killed him, and now my sister? I got no conscience for that man."

"Hey, Max is clean," Booth interjected. "He's not perfect, but he didn't kill Ruth."

"Boy, I don't even know who you are," Lydia said, staring down her crooked nose at him from where she sat on the couch.

"Seeley Booth," he said. "We're partners, me and her, and I know Max. He's a good guy."

"You _know_ Max?" Lydia asked dangerously. "You know him, huh? What do you know about him? That he an' my cousin met in jail in Ohio when they were eighteen? That Charlie's dumb ass brought that scum home? That he an' Ruthie hit it off, that she thought he hung the moon, an' didn't listen to any of us when we said he was bad news? Or did you know they went back up to Ohio after Charlie left, got 'im in the wrong crowd, got 'im killed? And he made Ruthie swear she'd never come back, huh? Did you know that about Max Keenan? Did you find _that_ on his rap sheet?" Booth was silent, and Brennan did not realize but she was slowly shaking her head back and forth.

"No," she said. "No, that's… that's not true."

"That's the truth, honey," Lydia said, setting her jaw. "That's the truth about Max Keenan. What a _good guy_ he turned out to be. He took my sister and I never saw her again, and after a few years the phone went dead too. She used to at least call, and write, and send pictures of y'all kids. Then it all stopped, and that was all of Ruth we ever got. A dead phone line." Lydia rose from the couch and walked out onto the back porch, slamming the sliding glass door behind her. She leaned against the railing and pulled out a cigarette, grinding her teeth angrily as she puffed.

"Sorry," Sarah Leigh, who had been silent during Lydia's diatribe, finally said. "She's just upset, is all. You've known about it for a while, but for her, it's like she died today. It's like she died right here in front of her, and when you stick up for your dad, it's like you're saying she didn't." Sarah Leigh popped out another piece of gum and added it to the first one. Brennan was finally able to make out the tattoos on the insides of her wrists—one was a spattering of stars, and the other was a simple butterfly outline, with the name "Sean" and "2008" penned on either side of it.

"He didn't," Brennan said. "He didn't kill her, he wasn't responsible for it."

"Good luck telling her that," Sarah Leigh said, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. On her upper arm she had another tattoo, a Sailor Jerry style bluebird, with "Mom" written in embellished cursive beneath.

"You know those are permanent," Brennan pointed out. Sarah Leigh frowned.

"What?" she asked.

"Tattoos," Brennan said, pointing to the one on her upper arm. "They're permanent. Well, they can be removed with laser surgery, but essentially they're permanent. Why would you want to brand something into your skin that you can't remove?" Sarah Leigh opened her mouth to retaliate, but Booth snorted and waved his hands in front of him before she could.

"Please, don't," he said, trying very hard to suppress his laughter. "You don't understand, she's just… she's very honest. She doesn't mean to be rude." Sarah Leigh cocked an eyebrow, looking from Booth to Brennan.

"Oh!" she said suddenly, snapping her fingers. "You got that disease, don't you? That kinda autism where you look and talk normal but you're just a jackass, right? What's it called…"

"Asperger's syndrome?" Brennan said, knitting her brows. Sarah Leigh clapped her hands together.

"Yes!" she said. "That's it, Asperger's syndrome. I saw a late night TV special on a kid with that, he was like a genius but he was a total jerk to everyone and didn't even mean to be. I'm sorry, here I was about to rip you a new one and you got some kind of disease…"

"I don't have Asperger's syndrome," Brennan said. Sarah Leigh shook her head.

"You don't have to be ashamed," she said. "We're family, there's no secrets here."

"I don't have Asperger's," Brennan repeated firmly.

"Alright," Sarah Leigh said, giving her a knowing look. Booth finally lost control of himself, positively howling with laughter. Lydia let herself back into the trailer, and glowered at Booth.

"What's so damn funny?" she asked. He opened his mouth to explain, but instead let out another peal of laughter. Brennan rolled her eyes.

"It's not that funny, Booth," she said.

"Temperance has Asperger's," Sarah Leigh told Lydia.

"I do not!"

"Like that kid we saw on that show?"

"Yeah!"

"I do not have Asperger's!" Brennan nearly shouted.

"That's nothin' to be ashamed of," Lydia said. "Shit, wait 'til you meet your cousin Charlene, she's got a nervous tic that looks like she's been playin' craps for crack all night."

"Don't talk about Charlene," Sarah Leigh chided. "She's got a lot on her plate."

"I'm just tryin' to make Tempe feel better," Lydia said. "We could talk about you instead if you like."

"Don't you dare," Sarah Leigh said, pointing a finger at Lydia.

"Keep pointin' that finger at me little girl, see where it ends up," she threatened. Brennan caught Booth's eye, and raised his brows at her and smiled as if to say, _Don't look at me, they're yours_.

Their banter continued on like that for a while, and Brennan almost felt like she had become just another pile in the living room until Lydia turned to her suddenly and said, "You need to come home with us."

"What?" Brennan asked, caught off guard.

"Come home," Lydia said. "With us. Everyone's gonna want to meet you, don't you wanna meet them?" Brennan bit the inside of her cheek, and Booth could see the panic quietly welling up inside of her.

"I uh… I have to… the remains," she suddenly said. "I have to inspect their remains, the bodies found here."

"Your cousins," Lydia said. "They aren't _bodies_, they're people, and they're your people."

"So I should make every possible effort to determine what happened to them, as soon as possible," Brennan insisted. Booth shook his head.

"You can't work this case," he said. "You have a conflict of interest now."

"What! I don't have a conflict of interest, Booth, you know that. My interests are the least conflicted of anyone's here," she argued. Booth gave her a look.

"I don't think the defense would see it that way," he said. "Do you want to be like Hodgins, to have the entire legitimacy of your findings thrown out because of your connection to the victims?"

"Booth…"

"Temperance," he said, breaking her first name out of the arsenal and demanding her quiet attention. "You can't work this case, you're too close. Even if you don't feel it, you're still too close. If it got out that you were related—"

"How would it?" she interrupted.

"Defense lawyers can smell blood a mile away," Booth said. "They'd find out. Local cops called us in because they knew this was more than they could handle, and I just feel like it's going to get bigger."

"That's an entirely subjective observation based solely on your feelings, Booth, that's completely unsubstantiated…"

"Look," he said. "I'm just saying, I've got a feeling about this, alright? Trust me, please. If you want to make sure they really get justice, that whoever killed _your_ cousins gets justice, we have to do it by the book. No sneaking, no peeks, nothing. No mistakes." Brennan set her jaw, staring hard at Booth. She sighed.

"A feeling?" she said. He nodded.

"A feeling," he said.

"Why?" she asked. He gave Lydia and Sarah Leigh, who were watching them argue intensely, a brief sideways look.

"I'll tell you later," he said. "Just trust me." She looked to Lydia and Sarah Leigh, down at her feet, up at the ceiling, then finally back to Booth.

"I trust you," she sighed. He touched her shoulder with his hand, then withdrew it.

"Thank you," he said.

"So you're comin' or what?" Lydia asked. Brennan took a deep breath and expelled it, shrugging her shoulders.

"Yes, I suppose so," she said. Lydia smiled and Sarah Leigh grabbed her by the upper arm, dragging her reluctantly from the cool trailer out into the insufferable heat.

"You can ride with us," Lydia said. "Officer Pretty over there can come get you later. Two houses down, you got that?" she hollered out to Booth, who nodded.

"Two houses down," he repeated.

Sarah Leigh threw the truck door open and ushered Brennan in before she could change her mind. It was a single cab, with a bench seat straight across, and Brennan had to sit straddling the gearshift with her knees banging on the dash. It looked like a trashcan had thrown up inside the truck—old McDonald's bags, empty Styrofoam cups, a Cabela's magazine and a roll of toilet paper were among the detritus littering the foot space. Seemingly out of place, a Yankee Candle air freshener dangled from the rear-view mirror. It smelled like clean cotton.

"Ready?" Lydia asked, bringing the truck to life. The diesel engine puttered and whistled in back of them, the smell filtering into the cab. Brennan looked to her right, where Sarah Leigh had her elbow on the edge of the window, chin resting on her hand, observing Brennan with amusement.

"I suppose so," she said hesitantly.

"Good enough for me!" Lydia said, and they spun around in a backwards half-circle, now facing the road out. She yanked the gearshift and stomped the gas, and the back of Brennan's head bumped the glass window behind her as they jerked forward, kicking up clouds of dust as they rumbled off.

Booth watched them go from inside the SUV, and vaguely wondered what kind of misadventure he had sent her off into.

* * *

**A/N:** Like it? Hate it? Confused about anything so far? Let me know what you think! :)


	4. These Are My People

**A/N:** You know, I'm really impressed by how many of you jumped right on board with the idea of Brennan's relatives being river rats. You guys never cease to amaze me! Of course a few are skeptics, but the vast majority of you are right there with me, which of course makes me happy. Anyway, I wont say anything else right now, except that somebody makes a cameo appearance in this chapter, and I want to see how many of you can figure out who it is. Hint: They were in one of my previous fics, briefly. Enjoy!

* * *

_Well, I ain't never been the Barbie doll type  
No, I can't swig that sweet Champagne, I'd rather drink beer all night  
In a tavern or in a honky tonk, or on a four-wheel drive tailgate  
I've got posters on my wall of Skynyrd, Kid and Strait  
Some people look down on me, but I don't give a rip  
I'll stand barefooted in my own front yard with a baby on my hip..._

_- Redneck Woman, Gretchen Wilson  
_

* * *

Brennan watched Sarah Leigh out of the corner of her eye as they bounced down the road for about a mile before turning just past a mailbox that had certainly seen better days. She could see the resemblance between them—they shared the same nose and eyes, though Sarah Leigh's skin, like Lydia's, had attained a deep brown that Brennan knew hers would never see. Judging by their level of color, Brennan didn't think these people had any inkling what sunscreen was, whereas she applied it daily.

Slowly the trees around them thinned, revealing another riverfront plot of grass that stretched into sand, then water. Before them stood a blue, single-story cinder block home, worse for the wear but solid. A crooked screen porch wrapped around the front and side of the house, and unlike the home itself it looked liable to fall over at the first strong wind.

Three large dogs charged the truck as it rolled to a stop, barking in a loud, good-natured way. Lydia pushed them away with her foot as she opened the door, turning to Brennan and yelling to make herself heard over the ruckus.

"You ain't scared of dogs are ya?" she asked. Brennan shook her head. "Good. They won't hurt ya but they're a little… over-friendly." Brennan crawled out of the truck behind Sarah Leigh, and was promptly knocked against the vehicle by a very large brown and white dog with a blunt head and barrel chest.

"Buckshot, giddown!" Sarah Leigh scolded the large pit mix, who had his front feet on Brennan's chest and was licking in vain at the air near her face. Sarah Leigh grabbed the animal's collar and yanked him hard, dragging him back with more strength than she appeared to possess. "He's a damn pain."

"He seems nice," Brennan said, smiling as she reached down to stroke the animal's wide head. Content to keep all four feet on the ground, the dog pressed himself up against Brennan's legs, tail wagging wildly, tongue lolling out the side of his wide mouth. Though he had looked dangerous when they approached, now he seemed about as intimidating as a cow.

"They're all nice," Sarah Leigh griped, tossing her old wad of gum into a collection of azalea bushes nearby and popping a new piece from the foil package. "That's the problem with 'em."

"Well, come on," Lydia said, beckoning the both of them towards the house. Brennan swallowed back the bile rising in her throat, clenching her fists anxiously. She had no idea what to expect behind that front door, and she did not like surprises.

"Everyone's here," Sarah Leigh said to Brennan as they came within an arm's reach of the door. "Since Abby an' Robbie died, everyone's been here. Just stayin' together I guess." With that she opened the door and thrust Brennan into the house.

Sarah Leigh hadn't been kidding when she said _everyone's here_. To Brennan it looked like a family reunion—a dozen adults milled around the great room of the house, which despite the name was rather small and crowded. Two children in bathing suits stood barefoot in the kitchen, which was separated from the great room by a long counter covered in open containers of food, eating sandwiches and dripping water all over the linoleum floor. Somewhere down the hall a baby fussed. Perhaps it was the clutter of frames on the walls staring down at her, or just the sense of walking into a room that already had too many people to comfortably fit, but Brennan was overwhelmed with a sudden claustrophobia.

"Holy shit you are never gonna believe this," Lydia proclaimed, brushing past Brennan as she entered the room and seemed to fill it to the brim. The family as a unit looked up at her, looking nervous and melancholy and mostly expectant.

"They got him?" a dark-haired male asked, rising from his seat on the worn-out couch. Lydia shook her head and shouted simultaneously.

"Esther!" she hollered, her voice reverberating through the low-ceilinged house. "Judy! Get out here!" A largish woman with loose brown curls hanging around her shoulders stepped halfway into the kitchen, her cigarette-holding hand still out the door. Brennan pegged her immediately for Sarah Leigh's mother—she had the same eyes they all shared, and the nose, though her face was a bit wider and wrinkled with sun and age.

"Get _in_ here," Lydia insisted. The woman huffed and scrubbed the end of her cigarette into the doorframe, dropping it on the ground outside and shutting the door behind her.

"Ma, for God sakes that's a doorframe, not an ashtray," Sarah Leigh complained, and Brennan smiled for having been right.

"Shut up," the woman replied harshly, giving Sarah Leigh a look of distaste. "Dunno who made you so damn high-and-mighty since you quit smokin'."

"Both y'all shut up," Lydia said. "Where's Esther?"

"I'll get her," said a woman who appeared to be about Brennan's age, rising from her seat at the end of the couch and wandering down the hall into what Brennan assumed was a bedroom. When she returned a minute later, an older teary-eyed blonde followed her out, carrying a squalling baby on her hip.

"Did they find out who did it?" the woman asked, her voice thick. Lydia shook her head.

"No, no clue," she said. "They're lookin' into it. But lookit this." She grabbed Brennan by the right hand, yanking it forward and putting it on display for the entire room. Brennan stumbled, just catching herself. Most of the room surveyed her with mild confusion and distaste—she was a stranger in their midst, and at a time of family crisis no less. But after a moment, the two women Lydia had beckoned into the room seemed to grasp the significance.

"No shit," the dark-haired woman said, her jaw hanging slack. The blonde looked nearly like she was going to drop the baby, her face transforming from grief to shock.

"That's Ruthie's ring!" the blonde said.

"That's Ruthie's kid!" the dark haired woman yelled, bridging the gap between them and sweeping Brennan into an unexpected hug. She held her at arm's length by her shoulders, surveying her much in the same way Lydia had. The room began to buzz with dawning comprehension.

"Ruth like your sister?" the male who had spoken earlier asked Lydia, who nodded.

"What does that make her to us?" another man asked from where he sat on the floor, back leaned against the far wall.

"Your cousin, dipshit," Sarah Leigh responded.

"Holy shit," the dark-haired woman said, relinquishing her grip on Brennan. She began to feel rather light-headed as various relatives enclosed her in a curious circle, eyeing her like a zoo exhibit.

"God almighty," the blonde uttered.

"Another cousin!" the man shouted.

"Where'd you find her?"

"What's her name?"

"Ruthie's girl, holy shit."

"Holy shit!"

"I think I'm going to be sick," Brennan said suddenly, feeling the cool clamminess overtake her. She stepped out the front door, turned towards the bushes, and promptly threw up the last remains of her breakfast.

"No she's fine, she just has that weird brain disease," she heard Sarah Leigh explain just inside the door. Brennan screwed her eyes shut, trying to spit the taste out of her mouth. She felt someone tug on the sleeve of her shirt. Looking to her right, she saw one of the children from the kitchen, a little girl, holding out a glass of water.

"You okay?" the girl asked as Brennan stood upright and took a sip. She breathed deeply and nodded.

"Yes, thank you," she said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Eleanor," the child proclaimed proudly. "I'm five and I'm gonna be in kindergarten this year. Who are you?" As Brennan watched the child speak, she couldn't help but smile—not so much at the girl's precocity, which was entertaining in itself, but at the fact that she saw so much of her own childhood self in her features. The eyes, which seemed to be a familial trait all around, the small nose, and something about her slightly crooked smile. This little girl, however, had long dirty-blonde waves and an enviable tan.

"I'm Temperance Brennan," she replied.

"How old are you?" Eleanor asked.

"Thirty-three," Brennan responded.

"When's your birthday?" Eleanor asked.

"It was at the beginning of the summer," Brennan said.

"Mine's in two weeks!" the girl said self-importantly. "And I'm'a be six."

"How's she doin' Ellie?" Lydia asked from inside the house.

"Fine!" Eleanor shouted back. "You gonna come in now?" Brennan nodded, taking another sip of water and following the child back into the house.

oOoOoOoOo

Meanwhile, Booth stood in the lobby of the District Four Medical Examiner's Office, arms crossed over his chest and hands tucked under them. It seemed like any time you entered a building in Florida there was a forty-degree disparity between the room temperature and the outside temperature. He wasn't surprised when the medical examiner approached him wearing jeans and a sweater.

"Cold?" was the first thing she said to him, holding a hand out to shake his. "I'm Dr. Marcy Simpson, head forensic pathologist here in the district four office. You're Agent Booth I take it?"

"That's me," he said, shaking her hand and noticing how warm it was. He could really use a sweater. "You performed the autopsies on Abigail, Robert, and Laura Armstrong?"

"Yes sir," the woman responded. Booth was slightly taken aback by the address, considering they were probably the same age, if she wasn't a little older than him. "Come on back to my office, we can go over the report there." Booth followed her down a sterile hallway into a back room, which was packed with filing cabinets and cushy chairs. He took a seat and she opened up the single folder sitting on the desk before her, turning it so that it faced him.

"Cause of death for all three victims was a gunshot wound to the head," she explained as Booth unflinchingly gazed at the photographs that accompanied her written statements. The only one his eyes lingered on was the four-year-old girl; that someone could brutalize a child was beyond his comprehension. He shook his head and tuned back into Dr. Simpson's comments.

"… and all were killed within the same period of time, probably within seconds or minutes of each other," she said. "They were all hung post mortem, though I'm not sure why."

"You don't have to do why," Booth said, thinking about his squints. "You just do how. Why is my job." Dr. Simpson smiled at him and nodded.

"Alright then," she said. "Well, all three were hung post mortem from a thin rope, less like a rope and more like thick twine. You know, hay baling type."

"Right," Booth said, remembering seeing the remnants of the rope on the tree. "And they were up there, what, a few hours?"

"'Bout eight," she said. "None of the bodies showed any signs of defensive wounds or other indicators of a fight. Looks like they were killed in their sleep." Booth felt a slight comfort in that—at least the little girl didn't suffer. "Also, no indication of drug use in the panels that came back, only a slightly increased BAC in the male."

"Drunk?" Booth asked. She shook her head.

"Not even buzzed," she said. "It was real low, only one or two drinks judging by his size and the level indicated in the screening."

"Alright, so that's written down in your report then, that it's a murder?" Booth asked, and she nodded.

"Definitely a murder," she said. "And a violent one. This was an unprovoked attack; these folks were shot to death in the middle of the night, in their own homes, asleep. It's no wonder St. Johns called y'all in."

"St. Johns?" Booth asked. "Clay County SO called us in."

"Well, they tried calling in the St. Johns sheriff's department first, but they didn't want to take jurisdiction. Whenever a nasty crime happens right on the river, Clay County usually tries to bounce it over to St. Johns. We've got a bigger force over here, more resources. St. Johns didn't want nothin' of it, though. That's why FBI got called in to help on the case."

"That's… good to know," Booth said, nodding slowly. "Really good to know, thanks."

"Yes sir," she said, straightening the papers in the file and closing it. "So I was told that you'd want the remains sent to the Medico-Legal lab up in D.C., that right?"

"Yeah," Booth nodded. "I appreciate your work, now I want my people to see what they can get out of it. Thanks again." Booth stood and shook the woman's hand once more before leaving.

He felt momentarily relieved when he stepped outside into the July heat wave, the oppressive humidity sticking to his skin as he crossed the parking lot. By the time he reached the SUV, he was sweating. Ah, Florida.

* * *

**A/N:** I know Brennan's chapter was a little confusing, but that's how I intended it to be. It will become clearer who's who in the next chapter or two, so don't worry about it for now. Also, I'd like to give a shout-out to the St. Johns County police department. I had a little, uh... incident... with some St. Johns County officers during spring break my senior year of high school. All things considered, though, they were pretty nice guys, so hats off to them.

Anyway, enough of that... let me know what you think of the chapter! :)


	5. Can Only Go Up From Here

**A/N:** Just so everyone knows, I realized exactly how addicted I am to this site when it was down over the past few days. I posted my most recent chapter of _The Mirror of a Bad Dream_ right before it crashed, and I was thinking to myself, "I wonder why nobody is reviewing that chapter..." Then I realized what had happened, and with each passing day I found myself more irritable and anxious for the site to be back up. It was like going through withdraw! Thankfully my supply is back in action and I am happy again. :)

So if you haven't been able to read/review that last chapter, maybe check it out and let me know what you think? Make my day? *big smile* You're wonderful! And now, more backwoods family fun. Enjoy!

* * *

_That's something to be proud of  
That's a life you can hang your hat on  
With your chin held high, the tear falls down  
Your gut sucked in, chest stuck out  
Like a small-town flag a'flyin'  
Or a newborn baby cryin'  
In the arms of the woman that you love  
That's something to be proud of..._

_- Something to be Proud Of, Montgomery Gentry_

* * *

"Hello?"

"Max?"

"Is this Agent Booth?"

"Yeah, it's me," Booth said.

"What's that noise?"

"The air conditioner." Booth drove down the familiar but still baffling dirt path towards the tract of riverfront land Brennan's relatives lived on, cool air pouring at the highest setting out of the A/C vents. He held the steering wheel steady with one hand as he navigated potholes and ruts, trying to split his focus between not getting lost and his conversation.

"So, what's up?" Max asked genially as he kicked his shoes off, leaning back into the couch in his daughter's living room. During the afternoons when she was at work and he had nothing better to do, he sometimes liked to use the key she gave him to let himself into her apartment and nap on the couch. He had his own place, but hers was much quieter—one of his neighbors was an old Filipino man who liked to have very loud phone calls with his relatives on the island in the early afternoon. Apparently he thought he had to yell loud enough for them to hear him from the Pacific.

"Your niece is dead." There was a tense silence over the line, and Booth could hear Max shift positions where he was sitting, presumably uprighting himself. "Abigail Armstrong, one of Ruth's sister's kids. But you already knew about her, didn't you Max?" He heard Max sigh heavily.

"It must have just happened," Max said.

"Two days ago," Booth said. "Gunshots, all three of them."

"Robbie and… oh God," Max said, groaning. "Laura?"

"Yes," Booth said.

"Why are you telling me this, Booth?" Max asked, knowing the answer before he asked it.

"You know why," Booth said. "You're involved, aren't you?"

"I'm not involved," Max said adamantly. "I stay as _un_involved as possible. For all they know, I'm dead."

"That sister-in-law of yours wishes you were," Booth said.

"Lydia?" Max asked with a sad chuckle. "She's always hated me. Thinks I'm, what, the scum of the earth?"

"More or less," Booth agreed. They were both quiet, then Max spoke again.

"What do your people know so far?" he asked.

"Nothing," Booth said. "But something's not right, I can feel it. There's something off about this whole thing."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Something stinks though, and I know I'll figure it out a lot quicker if you tell me what you know." Max sighed again, rubbing his face with one hand and holding the phone with the other as he shook his head.

"This goes a long way," Max said ominously. "This isn't just… if this is what I think it is, your guys are in way over their heads."

"I need you down here, Max," Booth said.

"Are you there now?" Max asked.

"That, or Hell," he grumbled. "Drive, fly, teleport, whatever. Get down here now."

"I'll call you." With that Max hung up his end of the line, and Booth snapped the phone shut just as he pulled into the grassy stretch in front of Brennan's aunt's home. Unlike the mobile home they had been at previously, this house had real walls and a concrete foundation, though the front porch looked less than reliable. He could only imagine what Brennan was dealing with inside.

oOoOoOoOo

"You feelin' alright now?" Lydia asked as Brennan took a seat on the couch, still holding the glass of water the little girl had given her. The child had scampered off somewhere in the back of the house, leaving her to contend with the adults on her own. Brennan nodded, taking another sip of water.

"I'm fine," she said. "I don't know what came over me."

"Hell, I'd be scared too if I saw all this ugly and found out I was related to it," one of the guys joked, and Sarah Leigh elbowed him sharply with a wicked grin.

"This," she said, "is Mike, and he's a jackass so you can ignore him most of the time."

"I am not!" the dark-haired man with light hazel eyes said, feigning emotional pain. Brennan thought he looked quite like a stockier, darker version of Russ. He leaned over and offered his hand to Brennan, who shook it. "But really, it's good to meet you."

"And you," Brennan said. He gestured over his shoulder at the older blonde woman Brennan had seen earlier, still holding the baby on her hip who had since quieted down. "That's my momma, Esther. Abby was my sister."

"Mine too," another man said. He mirrored Mike's coloring, but was taller and leaner. "I'm John—"

"—and I'm Charlene," a woman of strikingly similar appearance said.

"Are you twins?" Brennan asked. Charlene smiled.

"Yes ma'am," she said. "Twenty-eight years and I haven't killed 'im yet." Despite her humor, Charlene looked incredibly worn out, like someone who had been running on empty for days and hadn't been given the chance to refuel. They shared the same familial eyes, but Charlene's looked hollow and sunken, and true to Sarah Leigh's word, she occasionally blinked them in very hard, rapid succession—what Brennan recognized as a stress-induced blinking tic. She was as tall as Brennan but almost too thin, as if eating hadn't been on the top of her priority list.

"My mother had three sisters," Brennan said carefully, counting the eldest women from around the room. "Lydia, Esther, and…"

"Me," the tall, stocky smoker from earlier announced from the kitchen where she was pulling the cap off a beer bottle with her teeth. Brennan winced subconsciously. "I'm your Aunt Judy, and that brat—" she said, gesturing to where Sarah Leigh sat next to Brennan with her knees pulled up to her chest "—is mine. God only knows what I did to deserve her."

"Somethin' really, really good," Sarah Leigh fired back.

"I'm sure," her mother said sarcastically.

"So…" Brennan looked around the room, slowly categorizing the people she had met so far. As many kinship diagrams as she had produced and studied in her years as an anthropologist, this was by far the most difficult for her to grasp—her own. "Esther is my mother's sister, and John, Michael, and Charlene, you are her children?"

"And Abby," Charlene added fiercely, her eyes blinking furiously without her consent. "Don't forget her."

"And Abby," Brennan added. "And Sarah Leigh, your mom is Judy?"

"That's what they say," she said.

"Who are you?" Brennan asked the dark-haired woman sitting in the corner, the one who had fetched Esther earlier. She had been quiet throughout the past fifteen minutes—unusually quiet, Brennan thought, for someone in this family. She smiled kindly.

"I'm Molly," she said in the same soft, unassuming way she had spoken earlier when she offered to retrieve Esther. "It's nice to meet you."

"You too," Brennan said. She sighed heavily, resting her hands in her lap. "So is that… everyone?"

"No," the room nearly chorused. She grimaced.

"Don't worry, the bad part's over," Sarah Leigh reassured. "Molly's got a brother, Darren, but he's in town right now. Lydia's only got the two of 'em, so really after you meet him you're done."

"And Mema," Charlene added.

"Mema?" Brennan asked.

"Oh damn," Sarah Leigh said, her eyes widening. "You never met your own grandmother, have you?"

"No," Brennan said. "No, I haven't."

"You will," Lydia assured. "She's out with the choir ladies right now, they're rehearsin' for the funeral. But she'll be back later."

"Fantastic," Brennan said under her breath, not sure how many more relatives she could handle in a day. Feeling the lightheaded sensation take over again, she brought the cup back up to her lips. Realizing it was empty, she excused herself to the kitchen to refill it. Standing at the sink and listening to the oddly comforting sound of running water, she became aware of a small person at her side again.

"Hi." It was Eleanor again, changed into an oversized Guy Harvey t-shirt that nearly covered her shorts, standing barefoot on the linoleum floor. Her wet hair hung past her shoulders, soaking through the back of the shirt, and she looked up at Brennan almost expectantly.

"Hi," Brennan responded, not sure what to make of the child exactly.

"Are you gonna throw up again?" Eleanor asked. Brennan couldn't help but smile.

"I don't think so," she said. Eleanor beamed.

"Good! Come back in the livin' room," she said, taking Brennan gently by the hand and leading her back into the room. Brennan resumed her seat on the couch and Eleanor hopped lightly into her lap, taking her by surprise. They all continued to exchange details and stories, overloading Brennan with far more information than even her superbrain could possibly process and remember.

Before long the dogs sounded the alarm, and Brennan saw her partner's familiar black SUV come trundling down the road into the yard.

"Z'at your husband?" Eleanor asked. Brennan shook her head.

"Your boyfriend?" Lydia suggested. Brennan continued shaking her head.

"Your bed buddy?" Sarah Leigh offered.

"Sarah Leigh!" Molly admonished. "That's my baby sitting right next to you on the couch."

"I didn't say anything bad!" she said. Molly shook her head.

"She's gonna end up like you if you don't watch your mouth around her," Molly said. Sarah Leigh rolled her eyes.

"You act like that's a bad thing," she said. Molly snorted. Eleanor didn't appear to notice the conversation.

"We're partners," Brennan said, watching as Booth fought off the overzealous dogs. "That's all."

"Oh," Lydia said with understanding. "Ooooh. I get it."

"Yes," Brennan said.

"So he's funny, then?" Lydia asked. Brennan frowned.

"I don't know what that means."

"You know," Sarah Leigh said. "Funny. Not quite right. Different." Brennan shook her head.

"I still don't know what that means."

"He's gay," Judy finally threw out there. "Right? If y'all aren't doin' it then he must be gay."

"No!" Brennan said, finally understanding. "No, Booth isn't a homosexual, far from it."

"So you are doing it!" Sarah Leigh said triumphantly.

"No," Brennan said, not understanding the conclusion jump. "We're just partners."

"Honey, nobody's _just partners_ with a guy like that," Judy said. "If you don't want everyone to know that's fine, but we don't judge. What you do behind closed doors is your own business."

"We aren't having sex," Brennan insisted. "We work together, that would be crossing a line."

"Well, lemme tell you, I'd love to cross that line," Sarah Leigh said, watching Booth lift Brennan's luggage out of the back of the SUV.

"Mhmm," Lydia agreed. Booth finally made it to the door, and Brennan was glad for an escape from that particular venue of conversation. She scooted out from underneath Eleanor and answered the door.

"Hey," she said, smiling exasperatedly. Booth nodded, letting himself into the house. He looked up and realized that a dozen pairs of eyes were watching him intently, and he felt extremely uneasy.

"Uh… hi," he said to the room at large, waving hesitantly with his free hand. Almost as if choreographed, everyone in the room raised their hand up and waved back. Booth felt much in the way he did when he was at the beach and a flock of hungry sea gulls surrounded him. As much as he disliked birds, it was not a great feeling.

"Can we talk for a sec?" he asked.

"Y'all can take those back to Ellie's room," Lydia said. "You'll sleep there. Ellie, take your Aunt Tempe back there will ya?"

"Okay Gramma," she said politely, taking Brennan again by the hand and leading her back down the hall. Booth followed the two of them down the narrow hallway, and into a little girl's room with pale pink walls and pink John Deere pattern bedsheets. In fact, most of the things in the room were pink, except a small brown-skinned girl with curly black hair sleeping soundly in the middle of the bed itself. Eleanor put her small finger up to her lips as a signal for quiet, and Booth gently set the bag on the floor by the bed. The little girl, who couldn't have been more than three, suddenly jumped awake and, upon realizing there were strangers in the room, began screaming. Not just screaming, but _screaming._ Brennan had never heard a child, or any human, make such a noise.

"Aunt Charlene!" Eleanor yelled over the squall. "Maya's uuup!" Brennan thought the announcement was unnecessary, since everyone in the tri-county area was probably aware by now. Charlene came running into the room and scooped the girl up in her arms, smoothing her kinky locks against her head and shushing her gently.

"She gets night terrors," Charlene explained over the child's screams. "If she wakes up outta one of 'em she gets like this." Charlene coddled the girl and rubbed her back, but the child still wailed inconsolably. Eleanor stood by her aunt's side, rubbing Maya's calf with her small hand. Brennan could tell by her nonchalant nature that this was a recurring event.

"She's mixed," Brennan pointed out matter-of-factly, taking note of the child's light mocha skin tone and her coarse, springy hair texture. Charlene gave her a dark look.

"You got a problem with it?" she asked. Brennan furrowed her brows.

"Not at all," she said. "I was merely making an observation."

"She's just—" Booth began, but Charlene waved him off with the arm not holding the little girl.

"Right, the brain thing," she said, shaking her head. "It's alright. I'm sorry, I been snappin' at people left and right lately."

"It's fine," Brennan said unaffectedly, watching the child scream as if the entire world was falling down around her. Unexpectedly, Charlene began to cry too. Brennan felt like she was intruding on an intimate scene as she watched Eleanor's brows furrow together, her hand reaching up to pat her aunt's forearm.

"It's okay," the little girl said, sounding too old and too weighted for five. "Please don't cry, it's okay." Brennan had to wonder what in her life she had seen, what she understood, and how much of the world really had already fallen down around them.


	6. Just a Flicker of a Flame

**A/N:** I have a midterm tomorrow. Not just a midterm, but a very important, heavily weighted, determines-half-of-my-grade-in-the-class kind of midterm. But instead of devoting the entire day to studying like I should have, I spent two hours of the afternoon before said earth-shattering exam writing this chapter.

Why? Because I hate Art History. With a passion. _But you're an anthropology major_, I hear you all declaring in shock. _You're supposed to love old stuff!_ Wrong, wrong, wrong. My interest is in applied anthropology, using it to understand today's world. I think Archaeology (i.e. the anthropological study of "stuff" altered by humans) can be pretty dry. I think Art History is even more boring. In fact, I spend almost every day in that class doing the crossword in the newspaper. I've gotten very good at the crossword... but at the cost of having learned nothing about Etruscan art. Oops.

Anyway, I'm done boring you with my life story now. :) Enjoy!

* * *

_I keep a close watch on this heart of mine  
I keep my eyes wide open all the time  
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds  
Because you're mine, I walk the line_

_- I Walk the Line, Johnny Cash  
_

* * *

Brennan sat next to Sarah Leigh on the couch in the living room, which was folded out like a bed. They were propped up by the back of the couch and a handful of pillows, their legs stretched out in front of them and sharing space with Buckshot, who even curled up on the foot of the bed took up nearly half of it.

"So you live here too?" Brennan asked quietly as Sarah Leigh flipped through channels, the glow of the television screen the only light in the room. It was late—most of the family had gone back to their respective homes, save for John and Michael who were entertaining Booth outside by the fire pit. _My cousins_, she thought peculiarly to herself, still trying to grasp their relation. On the floor, Eleanor and Maya slept on a pallet of blankets and pillows, indifferent to the noise of the television and conversation.

"Yeah, since I was fifteen," Sarah Leigh said. "My mom and I weren't gettin' on very well so Aunt Lydia said I could stay with her if I liked. That was, shit, ten years ago."

"And Molly and her children live here too?" Brennan asked. Sarah Leigh shrugged.

"Well, kinda," she said, pausing on Home Improvement and deciding to leave it there. "I love this show. Anyway, Molly lives down the way with her husband, Eric, but they fight so goddamn much that she might as well live here. Ellie's here half the time just 'cause Molly works so much, lotta times she ends up spendin' the night, Brandon too."

"Brandon?" Brennan asked.

"Molly's other kid," Sarah Leigh explained. "He's with Eric on a huntin' trip right now, but you'll meet him when they get back. They didn't take the phones, they don't know about Abby and them." Sarah Leigh's face darkened, and she turned back to the TV, crossing her arms over her chest and watching Tim Taylor blow something up. Despite the cue of laughter from the audience, Sarah Leigh didn't crack a smile.

"What happened to Maya's father?" Brennan asked. She was careful not to say 'Charlene's husband' since she did not know the situation. Sarah Leigh didn't seem to hear her at first, but when the show went to a commercial she turned to Brennan with a sad look.

"Sean," she said, holding her wrist out, the one with the butterfly and Sean's name in tidy cursive. "That's Maya's daddy, Sean. He died, about a year ago. Him and Charlene were fixin' to go to the Keys for their fifth wedding anniversary too, right before it happened. Yeah, they were married," Sarah Leigh added, as if she could read Brennan's thoughts. With a wry grin she added, "Aunt Esther 'bout shit a brick when she found out Charlene was with a black guy, but Sean was the best man I ever met in my life, black or white."

"How'd he die?" Brennan ventured to ask. Sarah Leigh's jaw set.

"They found his car on the side of the road, half-way between town and home. He was sittin' in it with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead." She did not look at Brennan when she told her this, but at the television. The TV laughed quietly in the background, and Sarah Leigh cleared her throat loudly.

"They never found out," she said. "Who did it, I mean. Never found out. Never looked, really."

"They didn't conduct an investigation into his murder?" Brennan asked, surprised. Sarah Leigh shrugged.

"Not really," she said. "They said there wasn't no evidence to go on. From the looks of it, he'd pulled over to help someone on the side of the road—some asshole who hauled off and shot 'im. They said it was pro'ly a drifter and they'd never be able to catch him."

"They didn't have any evidence at all?" Brennan asked.

"I don't know," Sarah Leigh said, loud enough to make Maya turn in her sleep. Brennan eyed the child, afraid she would have another episode like she had that afternoon, but she stayed quiet. Sarah Leigh sighed. "Sorry. I don't know. I didn't ask a lot of questions at the time, you know. I was just so damn surprised. Sean was such a good guy, everyone loved him… who'd want to hurt Sean, you know?"

"Right," Brennan said vaguely, thinking about someone else she had known who did not seem to have any enemies, not to her knowledge, but had ended up dead.

"Anyway, ever since then Charlene and Maya been here, and now that Abby's gone Charlene's takin' care of Bethany too."

"Bethany?" Brennan asked.

"The baby," Sarah Leigh clarified, and Brennan remembered the dark-haired baby she had seen her Aunt Esther carrying. "Dunno why, but they didn't kill her, thank God. Charlene was Bethany's godmother, incase something horrible ever happened. We never thought it really would."

"I see," Brennan said. She felt that she could better understand Charlene's breakdown that afternoon, given what she had found out about her in the past fifteen minutes.

"Yeah. I used to stay in the guest bedroom but I gave it up so Charlene could get some privacy, you know? She needs that."

"And now you sleep on the foldout couch?" Brennan asked. Sarah Leigh smiled despite the darkness of their discussion topic.

"Yep," she said. "This is my bedroom suite, right here." She patted the lumpy mattress affectionately, then glared at the brown-and-white dog at their feet. "Didn't realize I'd be sharing it with company, though." Brennan withheld a laugh, rubbing the dogs back with her foot.

"You don't like dogs?" Brennan asked. Sarah Leigh made a face.

"I guess they're alright," she said. "I just don't believe in animals bein' in the house. Dogs belong outside. Buckshot's just a big ol' baby though and Lydia lets him get away with everything, even sleepin' in the house."

"I think he's sweet," Brennan said, watching the dog groan and stretch at the sensation of her toes scratching his back.

"Uh huh," Sarah Leigh said. "Well you can take him into bed with you then, if you think he's so damn sweet, how 'bout that?"

"That bed is going to be full enough already," Brennan admitted. "I doubt there will be room." Sarah Leigh gave her a wicked look and shook her head.

"You know," she said, "for two people who supposedly ain't doin' it, you and that man sure are awful close." It was Brennan's turn to shrug.

"We're partners," she said. "We're very close. We've saved each other's lives on numerous occasions—we have to have a close relationship."

"Right," Sarah Leigh said. "Fussin' all the time, finishin' each other's sentences, sharin' a bed kind of close? Is that how the FBI does it now?"

"We're just partners," Brennan reiterated, as she heard the three men enter the house through the kitchen. "That's all."

"Whatever you say, girl," Sarah Leigh said, smirking. "What_ever_ you say."

oOoOoOoOo

"Your cousins are a trip," Booth said about an hour later as they stood in the cramped hallway bathroom, elbowing each other out of the way as they brushed their teeth in front of the small mirror. It seemed to be a habit of theirs, to want to brush their teeth at exactly the same moment.

"Tell me about it," Brennan said. "I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Sarah Leigh and I are related. Sometimes it seems like she's from another planet entirely."

"Bones, out here _you're_ the one who's from a different planet," Booth pointed out. "Remember, to them you're the weird one, and they're normal."

"I know," Brennan said, patting her face dry. "It's just very foreign to me, is all. I'm going to need time to adjust." He nodded and they made their way down the hall into Eleanor and Maya's bright pink bedroom.

"They really like you, you know," Booth said as he crawled under the pink John Deere sheets, realizing just how much of a full sized bed he took up. Brennan delicately picked up the sheets on the other end, sliding in carefully so as not to brush any part of her up against him. She could do this. _We're just partners._ She chanted the mantra in her head as she reached over and tugged the chain on the bedside lamp, casting them into darkness.

"Yeah?" she asked, settling down into the bed. She felt Booth's leg brush against hers as he struggled to find a comfortable position, and was immensely glad they were in the pitch black so he could not see her flush.

"Yeah," his disembodied voice said. "They kept asking questions about you when we were outside, they really want to get to know you. They're excited to have a new cousin." Brennan smiled, pressing her cheek against the cool pillowcase. The fan whirred overhead, and for a while she just listened to that.

"I am too," she finally said.

"Excited?" Booth asked.

"Yeah," she said. "I never really thought I would meet my mom's side of the family. Certainly not under these circumstances."

"I knew you'd find them eventually," Booth said.

"How could you possibly know that?" she asked, knowing the answer already.

"Just a feeling," he said.

"You have an unusually high success rate with those intuitive leaps of yours," she said. "Speaking of, I have a question for you."

"What is it, Bones?" Booth asked. She could hear the tiredness in his voice, so she skipped the story-telling part and went straight to the question.

"Charlene's husband Sean was found shot to death in his car on the side of the road about a year ago," she said. "Tomorrow when you go down to the sheriff's department to get the case file on the Armstrongs, will you look for his file too?"

"Sure," Booth said. "What is it I'm looking for?"

"I'm not sure," Brennan admitted. "I just want you to take a look at it, is all."

"Temperance Brennan," Booth said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "Do you have a _feeling_ about this?" She scoffed.

"Absolutely not," she defended.

"You do!" Booth insisted. "You do have a feeling about this, that's why you want me to look at it. Your _gut _is telling you that there's something wrong there, isn't it?"

"My intestines are telling me no such thing," she said.

"Admit it," he said. "Admit that your gut is telling you something's not right. You have to."

"Or what?"

"Or I won't look up Sean's file," Booth threatened.

"Booth!"

"Just say it!"

"Fine," she confessed through gritted teeth. "I have a scientifically unsubstantiated intuitive notion that something might have been overlooked or done improperly in Sean's murder investigation. Are you happy now?"

"Yes," Booth said. "Thank you. That's all I wanted to hear."

"Good. I'm going to sleep now."

"Goodnight, Temperance." She felt a shudder travel the length of her spine, the way it always did when he used her first name. Something about the way it rolled off his tongue.

"Goodnight, Booth."

oOoOoOoOo

The next morning Booth woke before the sun. He had not slept well, a combination of bed-sharing anxiety and thinking about Brennan's request. He lay next to her for a while, listening to the metrical rhythm of her breaths as she slept, apparently soundly. He envied her effortless slumber, as his mind was teeming with unanswered questions.

Abby, Robbie, and Laura Armstrong had all suffered gunshot wounds to the head. Apparently, so had their cousin by marriage, Sean. Death by gunshot to the head wasn't exactly an uncommon way to die, which made the link between their deaths circumstantial at best, at least for the moment. The only unique thing about the Armstrong shootings was the type of shells found at the scene of their murder—they were rifle shells. Rifles, Booth knew, were the type of gun least likely to be used in a homicide.

Unable to lie still any longer, Booth deftly rolled out of bed without waking his partner, slipping into the previous night's jeans and pulling a clean t-shirt out of his bag. He shut the door behind him as quietly as possible, trying not to wake anyone as he walked down the hall into the kitchen. It was still dark outside, and everyone else was probably still asleep.

He was surprised, then, to find Lydia standing in the middle of the small kitchen in a robe and slippers, watching her coffee percolate. She did not look up when he entered the room, but her slight smile acknowledged his presence.

"You're up early," she said in a low whisper. Not far from where they stood, Sarah Leigh was asleep on the pullout with Eleanor and Maya, who must have crawled up onto it in the night, and Buckshot, so large that he nearly pushed Sarah Leigh off the bed entirely. Their actions were visible only by the dim bulb above the oven, which was on as a nightlight of sorts to guide wanderers safely through the house.

"I didn't sleep much," Booth admitted. Lydia pulled another mug from a shelf above the sink, setting it next to the one she had already retrieved for herself. "Why are you up so early?" he asked.

"Honey, I run this house top to bottom," Lydia said. "If I didn't get up at five every mornin' to fix breakfast and start laundry, I'd never get everything done. I gotta be out of here by seven for work—usually I'm out the door just as everyone else is gettin' up."

"Where do you work?" Booth asked out of curiosity. She made a vague motion that Booth supposed signified some place far off, but out here far off could be literally anything. Nothing was what he would consider 'close by'.

"The dairy farm up there just outside'a town," she said.

"By town you mean Green Cove Springs?" Booth asked. She smiled.

"There ain't exactly another town any closer," she said. Booth nodded—that was certainly the truth. "Anyway, I do papers there, so does Molly. Robbie, Abby's husband, he used to work there too. He was one of their agricultural inspectors, and made good money doin' it. I tell Mike, that's what you should be doing, but he loves workin' on cars too damn much."

"We talked a little about that last night," Booth said, nodding in thanks as Lydia poured him a cup of coffee and handed it to him. "He said he did mechanic work in town. Do all of you work in town?"

"Well there's no jobs to do down here," Lydia said. "All but Sarah Leigh, really."

"What does she do?" Booth asked Lydia, who made a face.

"She's a bartender at this little hole in the wall about half-way to town," she said. "She does good on tips but I just wish she'd settle down already. For God sakes, she's twenty five years old and she hasn't even got a steady boyfriend."

"Maybe she's not into the white picket fence thing," Booth offered, smiling as he thought about another relative of Sarah Leigh's who detested the idea of being a housewife.

"Well she better get into it," Lydia growled. "It ain't right for a woman to just flirt around and sell drinks every night; she needs to start thinkin' about a real life and a family, instead of sleepin' on my damn couch every night." Lydia's tone was hard but her eyes were soft as she watched two generations of her family asleep in the living room.

"Some women aren't meant to settle down," Booth said sagely. Lydia smirked.

"So is that why y'all aren't together yet? She won't have you?" she asked. He choked on his coffee, nearly spewing it onto the clean counter.

"What? No! We're not… that's not why… I mean she is, you know, that kind of woman, but that's not why we're… we're just partners." Lydia shook her head, rinsing out her mug.

"You keep tellin' yourself that," she said. "But I'm an old hen, Booth. I know something when I see it." She left him with that, and he finished off the rest of his coffee in two burning gulps. He'd known her for all of twenty-four hours—what could she possibly know that he didn't already?

He left the house shortly after their exchange, feeling confident now that he could get to and from the sheriff's office without getting lost in the tangle of unmarked dirt roads and mossy oaks. He did just fine, and the smell of coffee permeated the air inside the sheriff's office just as it had Lydia's kitchen.

"Agent Booth," McGrady greeted with a handshake and a tip of the hat. "You're up awful early—it's only, what, seven?"

"No rest for the weary," Booth said. "I came to pick up the Armstrong file and evidence, to send to my lab up in D.C."

"Great," McGrady said. "Hold on, I'll go get it for you."

"Also," Booth added as McGrady rose from his seat. "I was wondering if I could take a look at Sean Anderson's file too."

"Sean Anderson?" McGrady asked. Booth nodded.

"He was murdered last year, they found him on the side of the road in his car?" Booth prompted.

"Oh right," McGrady said, rubbing his face. "The Anderson case, I remember now. Sorry, it's still pretty early for me. Sure, absolutely." McGrady disappeared into a room of tall cabinets, and returned shortly with one moderately thick file of papers, and another much thinner one, sitting on top of two evidence boxes.

"That's all of it," McGrady said, setting the pile on his desk.

"Great," Booth said, taking the evidence and files in his arms. "Thanks. I'll get copies sent back to you guys for your records."

"That's fine," McGrady said. "By the way, why the Anderson file?"

"Just a thought," Booth said vaguely, turning on his heel and heading for the door. "Thanks again for your help, Officer."

"Call me Phil," the officer said genuinely. "Nice seein' you again, Agent Booth." He waved Booth off and as soon as he was back in his car, he opened up Sean Anderson's file and began to read up on the investigation done into his murder.

Brennan had been rightly informed—there wasn't much of one done. His brows furrowed together as he read through the report. They hadn't dusted for fingerprints on the car, didn't search the car or Sean's house for evidence that might lead them in the direction of a potential suspect, didn't even so much as look at his recent calls list. They never assembled a manhunt to look for the supposed drifter; in fact, the only evidence they had collected at all was a single shell from the grass alongside Sean's car.

Booth felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

The shell was from a hunting rifle.

* * *

**A/N:** Just an FYI, I love Johnny Cash. I also love America's Most Wanted, and it was from watching AMW that I learned that rifles are the type of gun least likely to be used in a murder. Interesting, huh? Props to John Walsh for spreading that tidbit of info.

So, what do you think? What do/don't you like so far? I enjoy hearing your thoughts, so leave a review and let me know!


	7. Another Door to Peek in Through

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay between chapters! I would say I've been really busy, but I've actually been on break so I'm not that busy at all (hence the chapters of _Mirror of a Bad Dream_ and the one-shots over the past few days). This fic just requires a lot more thinking than _Mirror_ does, so I guess I put more time between the chapters to give myself a chance to really think over what I write. The devil is in the details, and I want to make sure I get it all right so you guys don't call me out on something important later. :) Anyway, here's the next chapter, enjoy!

* * *

_Yeah, way down yonder on the Chattahoochee  
Never knew how much that muddy water meant to me  
But I learned how to swim and I learned who I was  
A lot about livin' and a litttle 'bout love..._

_- Chattahoochee, Alan Jackson_

* * *

When Brennan finally woke up that morning, she found herself alone in the pink bedroom. The sun was high in the sky outside of the window, and when she grabbed her phone she realized it was eleven thirty in the morning. She was surprised that she had slept in so late, and more surprised that nobody had thought to wake her up—or had done so on accident. While she had only known her family for twenty-four hours, they didn't strike her as a quiet bunch.

She found the kitchen and living room empty as well, and thought the entire family might have left her alone until she heard a child's enthralled squeal from out back. She wandered barefoot out the back door and down the grassy slope that slowly turned into sand, right up to the water's edge. There was a long dock that stretched out into the river, and Brennan saw several small people and two tall ones at the end of it. She walked the length of the dock, and when she was half-way down it a male figure turned and waved to her. She recognized him as her cousin Mike, the mechanic, and waved back.

"Good morning," he said when she reached them. She shielded her eyes against the sun, looking out at the river that sparkled in its light.

"More like afternoon," Brennan observed. "I didn't mean to sleep so late."

"Hey, don't worry about it," Mike said. "Getting used to our family is like training for a marathon—the first day's a bitch, but it gets a little easier the longer you do it." Brennan laughed.

"I find that analogy to be incredibly accurate," she agreed. The woman who was standing with Mike looked at the man as if waiting for an introduction, then sighed and shook her head.

"I'm Lisa," she said. "You must be Temperance, Mike was just telling me about you."

"Are you his wife?" Brennan asked, shaking the woman's hand.

"Ex," Lisa said with an almost wry smile.

"Oh," Brennan said. "I'm… sorry to hear that?"

"Don't be," Mike said. "This wench sucked the best years out of me." Lisa elbowed him hard in the ribs, and he bent slightly at the blow.

"Don't believe him," Lisa said with a laugh, pushing her chin-length blonde hair out of her face as the breeze blew it.

"Nah," Mike said. "I'm just playin'."

"I see," Brennan said, bemused by the pair and their seemingly good-natured interactions.

"Okay, I've gotta go," Lisa said. "Temperance, it was nice meeting you. Mike, I'll see you tomorrow at the service. Your mom still wants me to bring the deviled eggs, right?"

"Yeah," he said, giving Lisa a peck on the cheek. "Thanks." She waved him off.

"I'm just glad she's speaking to me again," Lisa said ruefully. "Anyway, I'll see y'all tomorrow." With that she headed back down the dock, leaving Brennan and Mike to watch the kids as they hung onto a large innertube that floated about twenty feet off of the dock, tethered by a thick rope. She recognized Eleanor and Maya, but also saw a dark-haired boy and girl who she did not know.

"Those are mine," Mike said, as if reading her mind. "Danny and Maggie. Hey y'all, c'mere!" he shouted out to the kids, who detached themselves from the float and paddled over to the dock ladder, scrambling up it.

"Yeah?" the boy asked.

"This is your Aunt Tempe," he said, motioning to Brennan, who waved. "Tempe, this is Danny, and this is Maggie."

"Hi," they said in unison, watching her curiously.

"Are you really related to us?" Danny asked, his eyebrows wrinkled in a scrutinizing way.

"Yes," Brennan responded.

"Then how come we ain't met before?" he asked.

"Well," Brennan started, "I didn't know we were related until yesterday."

"Oh," Danny said, jutting out his lower jaw. "That's weird."

"Yes, it is," she agreed. "So Danny, how old are you?"

"Nine," he answered. "And Maggie's seven."

"I coulda told her that myself," Maggie grumbled.

"You wouldn't'a," Danny shot back. "She's shy," he added to Brennan, as if Maggie were a third party incapable of speaking or hearing.

"Leave her be," Mike said, cuffing the boy lightly across the back of the head with his hand. "Y'all g'on back with Ellie and Maya, and keep an eye on her, okay?" Danny nodded.

"Throw me!" Maggie shouted. Mike acquiesced, grabbing the little girl by the arms and swinging her in two circles before releasing her, sending her flying through the air and into the water. Danny stood expectantly and he repeated the procedure, though panting slightly after he released the boy.

"He's getting big," he said, rubbing the burned back of his neck.

"You and Lisa seem very amicable," Brennan observed as she and Mike stood at the edge of the dock, watching the kids splash around.

"Yeah, we are," Mike agreed. "It wasn't an ugly split between us, really. She's still my best friend."

"What happened?" Brennan asked. Mike sighed.

"We were just too young," he said. "We dated in high school, got married straight out the gate, and a year later she was pregnant with Danny. We were together eight years before we split… that was, what, four years ago now? We just knew it wasn't made to last—we were just kids, we didn't know what we wanted in life, you know?"

"Yeah," Brennan said, thinking that even at thirty-three she didn't know exactly what she wanted out of life.

"I mean, shit, I'm thirty years old, I got two great kids, I got all I want," Mike said. "I love my job, workin' on cars, I got all my family here, my life is good. God blessed me, I couldn't ask for more. Lisa… I guess she couldn't say the same thing. She's happier now, and I'm glad she is."

"I see," Brennan said. "So she initiated the divorce?"

"Nope," Mike said, his thumbs hanging on the side of his bathing suit trunks. "I did. She never woulda, that's just not Lisa."

"She would have gone her entire life in an unhappy marriage?" Brennan asked, slightly incredulous.

"Yep," Mike said simply. "She thought she wanted the whole white picket fence thing—a perfect husband, two-point-two kids, a nice house, all that. And she was gonna keep pushin' it 'til it worked, come hell or high water. She didn't really know what she wanted, though, and I knew she'd never figure it out stuck with a guy like me."

"You don't seem that bad," Brennan said kindly. Mike smiled at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a good-natured way.

"Thanks, Tempe," he said. "I like to think so, but I'm a simple guy, really. A boat, a beer, a busted up carburetor, and I'm happy. She needed more than that to keep her, you know? Some people just aren't made for each other, or they are but they just never get their shit together. You know how it goes."

"Yeah," Brennan sighed, wondering where Booth was. "It happens."

"Mhmm," Mike agreed. "Like Molly and Eric, wooh, talk about two people who shouldn't be together anymore. They fuss more'n any two people I ever met in my life, but they just won't let it go."

"I'd heard that," Brennan admitted.

"You know how some guys just want women to sit around the house and take care of domestic shit all day while they're out at work?" Mike asked. "That's Eric. Now he's my cousin-in-law and I love him, but that man's head is screwed on funny. I dunno how Molly's put up with his shit all these years."

"Like what?" Brennan asked, intrigued. Mike sucked his teeth.

"Well, for one thing, she wanted to go to school," Mike said. "College, you know. She thought she'd work for a while, save up, then maybe go to SJRCC—"

"SJRCC?"

"Saint John's River Community College," he clarified. "You know, get started there, see where it went. She met Eric at the Gustafson dairy where she was working, fell in love, all that. They got married when she was twenty, and by that time next year she was pregnant with Brandon. All that money she was savin' for school went to the baby, and after a while she just kinda gave up on the idea."

"That's sad," Brennan said. Mike nodded.

"Yeah, it was a real shame, especially seein' as how damn smart Molly is. 'Til you came along she was the smartest one in the family, hands down. Now you come in with all your fancy degrees and all, makin' us look like a bunch of dumb rednecks." Brennan shifted uncomfortably and Mike grinned, punching her lightly on the arm. "Oh stop, I'm just messin' with you." Brennan smiled.

"She still works at the dairy farm, doesn't she?" Brennan asked.

"Yep," Mike said. "Twelve years, and she's still doin' papers. Works more than anybody I ever met. Lydia's only part-time at the dairy, but Molly pro'ly works nine or ten hours a day, five days a week. This time she took off after what happened to Abby? First time she's used her leave in three years. She could take the whole month off if she wanted to!"

"Wow," Brennan said. "What does Eric do?"

"Works at the dairy too, him and Robbie were both agricultural inspectors there," Mike said. "Since he makes more he thinks he can get away with tellin' Molly how to spend her money. Mostly he's just pissed she works so much instead of bein' home to cook and clean for him."

"That's so…" Brennan grappled for the right words.

"Stupid," Mike finished for her. "Dumb, asinine, however you wanna say it. Molly's too good for him, she deserves better, but she's been listenin' to him for so damn long she don't even think so anymore." Brennan was amazed at how a seemingly intelligent woman could let a man control her actions and future in such a detrimental way.

"What happened to Lydia's husband?" Brennan asked, the question suddenly occurring to her.

"Uncle Frank? He died, 'bout four years ago," Mike said. "Hit-and-run in the parking lot of a bar a bunch of the dairy guys go to after work. They never figured out who did it."

"That seems to be a rather pervasive theme in this family," Brennan observed darkly. Mike looked out over the water, like he was trying to see to the other side.

"You said it," he said quietly. "Uncle Frank, Sean, Abby, Robbie, Laura, your mom. Shit just happens to our people." Brennan felt, despite the heavy turn of their conversation, a swelling of—pride? belonging? acceptance?—at being included in _our people_. They were her people, as wild as it was to conceive of.

"Booth is looking into Sean's file," Brennan said. "I asked him to take it when he went to collect the evidence and reports on the Armstrong case, to send back to our lab. He's going to try to find a connection between the cases."

"You think somethin's not right about it?" Mike asked somberly. Brennan shrugged.

"I have… a scientifically unsubstantiated intuitive notion," she said. Mike snorted, looking at her over the cup he was drinking from.

"Look, I ain't stupid, but those are some five dollar words you just busted out with," he said. She laughed.

"I'm sorry. I meant that I have a feeling about it. I just happen to dislike making intuitive leaps in murder investigations."

"I don't know what that means," Mike said, and Brennan felt like she had heard that before somewhere.

"I prefer hard facts," she said. "Science. I don't like using guesswork or feelings to solve a case, but that's what Booth does. He's a… a 'heart man'."

"Booth's a good guy, we had a chat last night," Mike said, nodding. "Likes cars, likes football, just a good ol' boy like us. We're all going huntin' this weekend after the service, just a day trip with us guys."

"Is that so?" Brennan asked. "You know, I hunt as well."

"Get out!" Mike said.

"It's true, I'm licensed in four states," Brennan said. Mike shook his head, smiling in disbelief.

"You are somethin' else, Tempe," he stated. "You know that? Somethin' else entirely. Booth's a lucky guy."

"A lucky… what? We're not dating."

"He was real quick to correct me on that too," Mike said with a knowing smile. "A little too quick."

"It's the truth," Brennan said, wondering why everyone in her newfound family was convinced of her and Booth's sexual relations. "We're partners, that's all."

"Okay," Mike said. "If you say so. But Tempe, can I tell you somethin'?"

"What's that?" she asked.

"Now I don't know a whole lot about women," Mike said. "Hell, the one woman I been married to ended up happier without me. But if I was a woman and I had a guy like that who talked about me the way he goes on about you… I'd want a lot more than partners outta that deal. When a woman means that much to a guy, it means something, and when you got something that means that much with someone, you gotta make sure it doesn't get yanked out from under you. You gotta strike while the iron's hot, you know?"

"The iron's not hot," Brennan said, deciding to go along with the metaphor that she actually understood. "There's no heat involved."

"You keep talkin' like that and you're just gonna end up gettin' burnt," Mike said ominously. "But whatever, you're a smart girl, you'll figure it out. Eventually." Brennan gave him a look and he smiled, hiding behind his cup.

"Everyone I've met so far has certainly had a lot of opinions to voice," Brennan said wryly. Mike shrugged.

"We're an opinionated bunch, I guess," he said. "Now, you know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich? 'Cause I sure burn everything I touch, and these kids are gonna be hungry here in a little bit. Unlike some Sleeping Beauties in the house, the rest of us got up and had breakfast at a normal hour." It was Brennan's turn to slap Mike on the arm, and he laughed.

"Now you're gettin' it!" he said.

"I'm a fast learner," she retorted. "And yes, I think I can handle a few sandwiches."

oOoOoOoOo

Booth was half-way between the sheriff's department and Lydia's house, his mind reeling with the recent information he had read. As he contemplated a thousand different possible scenarios, his phone rang. Thinking it was Brennan, he picked it up without consulting the caller ID.

"Booth," he answered.

"It's me."

"Max?"

"Yeah. Look, I'm in Florida, just got here."

"Great," Booth said. "Are you in Jacksonville?"

"Nah, I thought I'd fly in through Miami," Max said sarcastically. "Yes, I'm in Jacksonville, and I need you to come get me."

"Can't you get a rental?" Booth asked.

"Hey, contrary to what you might think, the Jeffersonian doesn't pay me that much to show kids how to blow stuff up," Max said. "Just 'cause my daughter's drinking monkey-picked tea out of hand glazed Tibetan mugs doesn't mean I am." Booth did not bother to ask what on earth Max meant, but sighed into the line.

"Fine, I'll be there in… an hour, probably," he said, looking at the clock on the car. It was just past noon.

"Great," Max said. "Besides, the fewer cars we have there the better. Draws less attention."

"Attention to what?" Booth asked.

"We'll talk when you get here." With that Max hung up the phone, and Booth growled audibly as he flipped his shut, immediately flipping it open again and hitting the first speed-dial on his list. He was getting fed up with Max's ambiguity.

"Brennan," his partner answered, sounding harried. The background was filled with noise.

"Hey, it's me," Booth said. "What's going on?"

"I'm making lunch," she said. "Mike stepped out and left me with the kids."

"Both of them?" Booth asked.

"No," she said. "All four of them." Booth snorted.

"Mike left you on your own with four kids? He's crazier than I thought. Where'd he go?"

"He said to get beer," Brennan said. "But the closest gas station is twenty minutes away from here. Please tell me you're almost home?"

"Negative," Booth said. "I've got to go to Jacksonville, it'll be a while before I'm back."

"Jacksonville, what for?" Brennan asked. "I thought you—the ketchup's in the fridge, I think—you were going to FedEx the evidence from Green Cove Springs?" Booth smiled as he listened to Brennan battle her inner Martha Stewart.

"I'm not driving the stuff up there to ship," he said. "I already made copies and sent it. By the way, you were right about Sean's case being botched, they screwed the whole thing up. Also there was—"

"—Be careful with that!" Brennan interrupted, shouting hesitantly across the room. "Sorry, what?"

"Never mind, we'll talk when I get there," Booth said, smiling to himself. "You're tied up right now."

"A little," she admitted. "So what are you going to Jacksonville for?"

"Your dad," Booth said. "He's here."

"What?"

"Yeah, I asked him to come down."

"Why?"

"He knows something," Booth said. "I don't know what, but he knows something we don't about what's going on with these murders."

"I'm not really at liberty to discuss it now," Brennan said, balancing the phone between her chin and shoulder as she saved a grilled cheese from burning. "But I found out something else interesting related to the subject when I was talking to Mike earlier."

"Not child-friendly?" Booth asked.

"Not really," she said. "We'll talk about it when you get here."

"I have a feeling there's gonna be a lot of talking when we get there," Booth grumbled. "Lydia's going to have Max's head on a platter when she sees him."

"Maybe they'll be able to reconcile their past differences," Brennan said. "After all, dad wasn't responsible for mom's death, Lydia has to realize that."

"I dunno," Booth said. "She really blames him for Ruth's murder, she's pretty convinced he had something to do with it. I guess it'll all come out later."

"I'm sure it will," Brennan said. "I really have to go now, Maya just spilled her sweet tea all over the couch. I'll talk to you later."

"Good luck," Booth said, and her end of the line clicked out. He turned the radio up as the car traveled in the direction of the airport, and wondered just how much would 'all come out' when he and Max finally had their long-postponed conversation.

* * *

**A/N:** I know, I have been putting poor Max off for ages now... I promise we'll see him for real in the next chapter! By the way, kudos to anyone who actually knows what monkey-picked tea is... I am a tea snob so I had to throw that in there, hehe. In fact, I am drinking snobby organic whole-flower chamomile as I type this. I have a strong affection for high-quality tea, and while there are certainly worse things to have a penchent for, it has become a rather expensive enjoyance. Anyway, enough rambling about tea. What are your thoughts? Review and let me know! :)


	8. Just Look Over Your Shoulder

**A/N:** Max finally gets to have his say. Actually, he only gets to have half of his say, because this chapter was at about 7,000 words before I split it in half. The other half is almost done so you won't have to wait too long for it, it's just too long to post as one thing. Especially with all the information Max has to hand out, I think your brain would melt if I tried to force you to read it all in one chapter. And I wouldn't want your brains to melt... mine is already doing that because it's 3:30 in the morning and I don't sleep anymore. Yay insomnia? At least I get a lot more writing done when I don't sleep. :) Anyway, here's the next chapter. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_For six long years I've been in trouble  
No pleasure here on earth I've found  
For in this world I'm bound to ramble  
I have no friends to help me now..._

_- I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow, The Soggy Bottom Boys_

* * *

Booth waited impatiently outside Terminal C, striding between the terminal desk and the arrival board, arms crossed over his chest. Thirty minutes late, and nobody had any idea when the 414 from D.C. to Jacksonville would show up. Booth hated airports—the only perk was that being FBI, he did not have to subject himself to the TSA's stringent security measures. He kept his shoes on, flashing his badge as he passed through the multiple checkpoints and earning many grudging leers.

Finally, fifteen minutes later, Max's plane touched down on the runway, and slowly trundled over to the terminal. The man entered the airport with a book in hand, yawning like a bear.

"Booth," Max said good-naturedly, clapping the man on the back with one hand and nonchalantly handing him his carry-on luggage with the other. "Thanks, how've you been? Where's my daughter?"

"Fine," Booth said, rolling his eyes and shouldering the bag. "She's at Lydia's with her cousin's kids."

"Look for a green duffle bag. Tempe's babysitting?" Max asked, waiting for his bag to roll around on the carousel. "That was brave of her, she doesn't usually take to kids."

"She's coming around," Booth said, spotting the bag and snatching it up with ease. One thing could be said for Max—if nothing else, he packed light. "Anyway, she said Mike would be back soon. He's—"

"Esther's oldest, the mechanic," Max said. Booth raised eyebrows, and Max sighed. "We've got a lot to talk about."

"I'll say," Booth grumbled.

"D'you mind if we wait until we get there?" Max asked. Booth growled unhappily.

"What now?" he asked. "You keep putting me off and putting me off, why can't you just tell me on the ride home? Trust me, we've got a ride."

"Because," Max said, letting himself into the passenger's side door, "I'd rather wait until everyone's together and explain then. It's not the kind of story you want to tell more than once." Booth made a face, then rolled his eyes.

"Fine," he said, cranking the engine and turning the A/C on high, feeling the blessed cool air cut through the smothering heat of the car's interior. "Whatever you say, Max." Max nodded and leaned the seat back, resting his head and shutting his eyes.

"Good. Now if you don't mind, I'm gonna finish that nap I started on the plane."

oOoOoOoOo

Brennan heard the kitchen door open, and felt relief wash over her. An early-afternoon storm had rolled in, confining her and the children to the inside of the house, and it was nothing short of mayhem. She found herself curled up on the corner of the couch, head in her hands, having completely given up on trying to tame the wild things around her. They ran, screamed, and jumped on or over furniture in a way that made Brennan feel very much like she was witnessing a scene out of _Lord of the Flies_. She hoped someone else would get home before they sacrificed one of their own for a late-afternoon snack, as she did not feel equipped to stop them.

When the door shut she heard a baby begin to squall, though, and realized it was not Mike who had come to her rescue. A moment later Charlene came around the corner, in her typical frazzled state. She jostled the baby on her hip in an attempt to soothe her, but the cacophony within the house only seemed to agitate her further.

"Oh, hey there," Charlene said, suddenly noticing Brennan on the couch amidst the chaos. It was incredible the amount of noise and destruction four children could impose upon a household. "Where's Mike?"

"Gas station," Brennan responded loudly, so as to be heard over the baby screaming, the kids screaming, the television blaring, and the downpour outside. Soundless heat lightning flashed outside, and a hound bayed woefully. In the corner of the room, Buckshot lay curled up asleep, completely unfazed by the insanity around him. As the only dog allowed in the house, Brennan assumed he must be accustomed to the activity. "He said he'd be back soon."

"Oh, he won't be back for hours," Charlene said, standing at the end of the couch and swaying back and forth, eyes blinking madly as she attempted to soothe Bethany's cries. "Whenever he says he's goin' down to the gas station, he usually ends up seein' one of his buddies and riding with them somewhere else. How long's he been gone?"

"About an hour," Brennan said, feeling extremely grateful that Charlene showed up when she did, if Mike was truly not going to return for the rest of the afternoon. Charlene looked around her at the state of chaos, shaking her head.

"Take her," she said, handing the baby off to Brennan. "Take her in back or somethin', get her calmed down, I'll deal with the heathens."

"I don't really…" Brennan began, but Charlene wasn't going to listen to whatever reserves she had about handling babies. She dropped Bethany in Brennan's lap, and the baby latched onto Brennan's arm and hair, positively wailing. She did as she was told, walking with the baby into Eleanor's bedroom, and as she shut the door she heard Charlene begin to scream orders at the top of her lungs in the living room. She sighed, pushing the door completely shut and looking down at the inconsolable baby resting on her hip. At least her load had been reduced from four loud, screaming children to one loud, screaming child. This was manageable.

"Hi there," Brennan said plainly to the baby, who continued to sob. "Uhm… I'm here so, uh… please stop crying?" She gave the baby a little bounce to see if it might appease her, but she only cried more. Brennan felt anxiety well up in her chest—despite having had Andy in her custody for a week, she still didn't know an awful lot about babies. Besides, Andy had been a remarkably quiet child, happy with anything and everything. She could sit him in his bouncer in the living room and go about her business and he would watch quietly, intrigued by her every movement. Bethany was no such child—every time Brennan had seen her over the past two days, she had been screaming. She had woken up several times the previous night to hear Charlene across the hall, consoling the wailing child. Between Bethany's fussiness and Maya's night terrors, Brennan thought it was a miracle she got any sleep at all.

"Come on," Brennan pleaded, walking the baby back and forth across the room, doing a shifty little dance as she moved. "The room is quiet, the temperature is comfortable, you're not wet, I don't think you're hungry, I'm holding you… what do you want?" Bethany screamed in response, squeezing little tears out of her hazy eyes, and Brennan felt at her wit's end. She racked her brain for cross-cultural themes in child rearing—what did mothers universally do to soothe their infant children? Physical contact, satisfying primary needs, visual and auditory stimulation…

"Phalanges?" Brennan asked, wiggling the fingers of her free hand in front of the child, hoping to grab her attention. Bethany observed them for a moment, then seemed to almost scowl at Brennan, letting out a ferocious wail. Okay, perhaps visual stimulation wasn't the key. Brennan hummed tunelessly, waiting for the words to a song, any song, to come to her. Anything she could sing that might put the child at ease.

"Well I'm hot-blooded, check it and see…" she began to sing, in a slower, quieter tempo than the original song. "I got a fever of a hundred and three… come on baby, you can do more than dance… I'm hot blooded, I'm hot blooded…" As she sang the first song that popped into her head, slowly and softly, Bethany began to quiet. She shifted the baby so that her cheek rested on Brennan's shoulder, one arm wrapped near her neck and the fist of the other holding her shirt sleeve in a vice grip. Brennan smiled—it was working.

"You don't have to read my mind, to know what I have in mind… honey, you oughta know…" She rubbed the baby's back, and felt her sobs stifle into tired breaths. "Now you move so fine, let me lay it on the li-ine… I wanna know what you're doin' after the show… now it's up to you, we can make a secret rendezvous, just me and you, I'll show you lovin' like you never knew…" Brennan swayed back and forth, only able to see the top of the baby's head but fairly sure, judging by her slow breathing and silence, that she had finally fallen asleep. She held her for a few minutes longer, letting her singing fade into humming, then crossed the hallway and lay the baby in her crib. When she returned to the living room she was surprised to see all four of the children sitting quietly on the couch watching a movie, with absolutely no visible trace of the previous mayhem. She found Charlene in the kitchen, eating the left-over food from the kids' plates.

"She sleepin'?" Charlene asked, dunking one of Maya's half-eaten dino-nuggets in the rest of Danny's ketchup and popping it into her mouth.

"Yeah," Brennan said, watching Charlene with a sort of disgusted fascination. It must have shown on her face, because Charlene smiled sheepishly.

"When you're a mom, you'll get it," she said, rinsing off the now empty plates in the sink. "You don't always get to sit and eat a meal, so when there's left-over food… well, it's not so gross when you look after 'em. Trust me, I've dealt with nastier things than half-eaten chicken nuggets." Brennan smiled, remembering having had a similar conversation with Booth some time ago in regards to Parker.

"How did you get them to behave?" Brennan asked quietly.

"You just gotta show 'em who's in charge," Charlene explained. "These kids'll run all over ya if they think they can, and they're like wild animals about it—the more of 'em there are, the worse they get. One or two on their own, they're fine, but four of 'em…"

"Aunt Charlene," Maggie whined in the doorway, as if on cue. "I'm bored."

"What did I tell you?" Charlene half asked, half threatened, her voice suddenly becoming loud and sharp, like a saw cutting through a metal pipe. Maggie high-tailed it back into the living room, hopping on the couch between her brother and Eleanor and crossing her arms across her chest, pouting.

"What did you tell her?" Brennan asked after Maggie had gone. Charlene grinned.

"Mostly crap," she said. "Told 'em if they didn't shut up and act like real people I'd beat 'em so hard they wouldn't be able to sit for a week. I wouldn't," she added, seeing the look of mild horror on Brennan's face. "Beat 'em that hard, anyway. I might pop 'em a little when they act up bad, but I don't beat none of those kids. They just gotta think I will. A little fear's healthy, you know? Keeps 'em in line." Brennan nodded, remembering a few incidents in her childhood when her mother made it very clear to either her or Russ that for their own sakes, they should cease and desist their current behaviors. Her mother had never followed through with the threats, because she didn't have to—the threat itself did the job.

The dogs began barking outside, and through the rain Brennan could see a familiar black SUV pulling up to the house. Booth scuttled like a crab through the rain, around the back of the vehicle to grab her father's bag and then up to the front door. Her dad walked lazily through the rain, never one to rush for a little inclimate weather—a free shower, he called it with a smile.

"Hey," Booth said, kicking his wet shoes off just inside the door and dropping her father's bag on the floor. Her father walked past him, giving Brennan a stubbly peck on the cheek.

"Hey sweetheart," he said. "How have you been?"

"Confused," she said. "Dad, what's going on?" Ignoring her question, Max looked around the small interior, eyes falling on the children watching the movie. He smiled.

"The boy must be Brandon or Danny, they're about the same age, huh?" he asked. "Looks a lot like Russ did."

"Dad," Brennan said insistently.

"So where is everyone?" he asked, peering down the hall inquisitively. "I was kind of expecting a welcoming committee. Or, you know, torches and pitchforks…"

"I didn't tell them," Booth said to Max. Max's brows rose up nearly to his hairline, eyes wide.

"You didn't tell them I was coming?" he asked. Booth shook his head.

"Nope."

"Not even Lydia?" Booth continued to shake his head. "Oh Booth, that was a bad idea."

"Why's that?" Booth asked. "She hates you, if I'd told her you were coming she wouldn't have let us in."

"My sister-in-law doesn't like surprises," Max said ominously. At this point, Charlene's eyes widened considerably.

"You're the guy!" she said, hand on her hip and mouth open in surprise. "The one Aunt Lydia hates so damn much, Aunt Ruth's husband. It's you!"

"That's me," Max said, putting his hand out. "Max Keenan. You've gotta be Charlene, with the twin brother, right?" She nodded hesitantly.

"How'd you know?" she asked. Booth harrumphed behind Max.

"Yes, Max," he said agitatedly. "Please do tell, because I for one would love to know how you know who all of these people are, without them having ever met you."

"Let's wait 'til your Aunt Lydia gets home, huh?" Max directed to Brennan, who had been giving him a very dissatisfied look. "It's a lot easier to explain once."

"Oh, I'll call her now," Charlene said, picking the cordless phone up off the wall. "She's just down the road at Mema's, that's where everyone is, gettin' all the food made for after the service tomorrow." The phone rang twice before someone picked up—someone who was, judging by Charlene's sudden volume increase, very hard of hearing.

"Poppa!" she nearly yelled into the mouthpiece. "Poppa, it's me, Charlene! _Charlene!_ Put Mema on. Mema! _Put Mema on the phone!_" Finally the other line changed hands, and Charlene was able to talk in a normal voice. She wandered into the other room with the phone, then came back a few minutes later.

"I told Mema to tell Aunt Lydia you were here," Charlene said to Max, hanging the phone back on the cradle.

"Was she not there?" Brennan asked.

"No, she was there," Charlene said. "I'm just smart enough not to be the one to tell her." In a minute, Brennan understood what she meant—two trucks came flying down the muddy dirt road, windshield wipers wicking away the downpour at high speed. The first truck had hardly stopped before Lydia came flying out of it, and Brennan believed she finally understood the phrase, 'like a bat out of hell.' Sarah Leigh hopped out of the truck after her, saying something that couldn't be heard from inside. She reached for Lydia's arm, as if trying to hold her back, but Lydia yanked it from her grasp and continued to yell at no one in particular, red-faced. A plethora of other family members came tumbling out of the truck behind them, including a small, white-haired woman who Judy helped out of the truck.

Lydia threw the kitchen door open and immediately began screaming at the top of her lungs, causing everyone to take two steps back.

"Max, you cock-sucking rat-bastard sonofabitch, get the hell out of my kitchen before I find somethin' to stab you with!" Lydia's nostrils flared, eyes narrow, teeth bared. Brennan did not think she had ever seen such an angry-looking person, and a small part of her feared for her father's well-being. Lydia did not appear to be joking about finding something to stab him with.

"Lydia, long time no see," Max said calmly, not one to lose his cool in a heated situation.

"I could never see you again and it'd be too soon," Lydia spat. "What the hell are you doing here? You ain't welcome here, I told you I don't never wanna see your goddamn face for the rest of my life."

"I thought you might've reconsidered?" Max said. Lydia responded by taking an orange out of the fruit bowl on the counter and chucking it at Max's head. He ducked reflexively, and the fruit narrowly missed, exploding on the wall just behind him. In the living room the movie had gone long forgotten, all of the children watching with wide eyes, frozen in their spots on the couch.

"Alright, okay, maybe not," Max said, easing into the living room as Lydia stomped towards him, grabbing another orange and wielding it threateningly. The children didn't want for instruction—they jumped up off the couch and ran into one of the back rooms, Buckshot tagging along on their heels with his tail down. In Lydia's house, at least, the old saying seemed true: When momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

"You son of a bitch," Lydia hissed. "You got some kinda nerve… you get my cousin killed, get my sister killed, and you think you can just show up in my house? I got half a mind to shoot you for tresspassin', Max Keenan."

"You wouldn't shoot your own brother-in-law, Lydia," Max said.

"No, you're right," Lydia said, her voice still loud enough to ring in Brennan's ears. She, Booth, Sarah Leigh, Esther, Judy, and the woman she presumed was Mema stood in the background, silently and neutrally watching the exchange between Max and Lydia. Judy and Esther showed no passion or support in either direction; this was Lydia's ax to grind, not theirs. "I wouldn't do that, 'cause unlike you, Max, I ain't about to be responsible for one of my people gettin' killed!"

"It wasn't his fault," Brennan said, unable to control herself. Lydia turned and gave her a seething look, and she burned under her gaze.

"Honey, please," Max said. "I've got this. Lydia, you know I wasn't responsible for Charlie getting killed. I take responsibility for Ruth—"

"Dad!" Brennan said, but Max held a hand up to silence her.

"—because she was my wife and I should've died for her, I should've, but I didn't and I take responsibility for that. Don't think I haven't blamed myself, Lydia. I blame myself more than you ever could." Lydia glared at him, arms crossed over her chest.

"Dad, it wasn't your fault," Brennan insisted. "You were taken by surprise, neither of you could've seen it coming…"

"Honey, if you live like we lived, you gotta see everything coming," Max said. "We were always in danger, and if something happened to either of us, it was our fault for letting them get the jump on us. It was my fault for letting McVicar get the jump on your mother. But I tried to save Charlie," Max said loudly, turning back to Lydia. "I tried to save that kid, we both did, but it was too late. He was in too deep."

"In what?" Booth asked.

"All that trash Max got 'im tangled up with in Ohio," Lydia spat.

"I didn't get Charlie tangled up in anything," Max defended. "Charlie met those guys in jail way before he met me; he introduced us."

"Introduced you to who?" Brennan asked. Booth thought he might know the answer.

"The Strong Arm gang," he said quietly. Max nodded. "The bank robbers you and Ruth got in with, the gang you tried to get out of. The ones that put a hit out on you."

"A hit, on Ruth?" Lydia asked, visibly struck by the thought. Max sighed, sitting down on the now empty couch.

"If I tell you the story—the whole story—will you listen this time?" he asked Lydia, whose hard look was softened slightly by the sadness clouding her gaze. Lydia gave him a good, long stare before she finally nodded, taking a seat in the chair across the room from him. The rest of the family continued to stand, and Max rubbed his face with his hands, as if suddenly very tired.

"When I was eighteen, I was up in Ohio, just screwing around. Wasn't going to school, wasn't really working—I had an uncle out there I was staying with, trying to get a job since there wasn't any work back home. I was young, and stupid, and tried to knock down a little handy-way on the edge of town. The register guy conked me over the head and the cops caught up with me, and they tossed me in jail for the weekend. The charges were dropped eventually, since I was just a stupid kid, so no harm no foul, right? That's when I met Charlie.

"Charlie must've been nineteen or twenty at the time I guess, just a little older than me. We were two of a kind—smart but reckless, bored, just looking for something to get into. He got caught in someone's car or something, I don't remember now. Anyway, we made friends like that. After I got outta jail my uncle kicked me out, and Charlie let me crash on his couch 'til he got evicted, ran out of rent money. He was gonna move back home with his family, down south, and he said I could tag along if I didn't have anywhere else to go. I didn't want to go home and face my ma, not after I robbed a bank, so I said what the hell, let's go to Florida.

"So anyway, I ended up living with Charlie and his folks for about a year, and in that time I found out he had this knock-out cousin named Ruth." Max paused, grinning wolfishly. "We got together, found out we had a lot in common: two smart kids from nowhere towns, looking for adventure, something to do. We hit it off right away and by the end of that year I was hooked—I knew I wanted to marry her. Hell, I knew I wanted to marry her about a week after I met her, but she was a real free spirit and I didn't want to try and cage that up. So I waited, and when the time was right, I popped the question. At the time her family liked me—" Max said, looking out at the room of skeptics, "—and everything was good."

"Then what happened?" Brennan asked, hearing the real story of how her parents met for the first time. It was certainly different from the one she and Russ had been told as kids.

"Well, it was good for a while, but Charlie had started having problems with some guys. Guys would come by the house, or find him in a bar, you know. Turns out they were connected to the guys he met in jail up in Ohio—that little club of thieves turned themselves into a real badass group, the Strong Arm gang, and they were recruiting. Charlie didn't want to at first, said he was gonna walk the straight and narrow from now on. The guys from Ohio, though, weren't having any of it. They said if you ran with the Strong Arm once, you ran for life, and all of a sudden Charlie was telling me he was gonna move up to Ohio, go with these guys and join up with their gang. We tried to talk him out of it, me and Ruth, but these guys started dealing threats on Charlie's family and he felt like if something happened to them, it was his fault, so he left."

"Threats, on his family?" Lydia asked. Max nodded.

"Anyone he was close to," he said. "These guys weren't messing around—they kept a scrapbook of their handiwork, if you know what I mean. Just a few Polaroids to get the point across. Anyway, about a week after he went up Ruth says to me, 'We can't just let him go up there, they'll kill him.' She was right—Charlie was a screw up, but he wasn't a hard criminal like these guys. I said, 'What can we do? He's gone.' She looked at me for a long time, and then said, 'Well, we'll just have to go up there and get him, won't we?' I tried to talk her out of it—Charlie was a grown man, he made his own decisions. She said he was her cousin and she wasn't gonna let her cousin make the stupid decision that got him killed… and everyone here knows when Ruth made up her mind on something, that was it.

"So that's how we ended back up in Ohio. First we just went up to get him to come back, you know, but he said he couldn't go. He said they threatened to kill him, kill his sisters, his parents, his cousins…"

"Us?" Judy asked from where she stood leaning against the kitchen counter.

"Yeah, you," Max said. "Ruth too, Lydia, all of ya. Even in the early days they had a bloodlust—they'd kill just to make a point, didn't need a real reason. That's part of what made them so notorious; it wasn't so much that they robbed all those banks, it was all the killings that went with them.

"So at this point I tell Ruth, look, we can't do anything here, let's just go back home and forget about it. But she wouldn't have it—she wasn't gonna just leave Charlie like that. But the longer we stuck around, the more suspicious the gang got. They thought Charlie might be feeding us information, and we might be turning around and giving it up to someone else, rival groups or the police, you know? So they gave the ultimatum—join up, or die. I guess it's obvious what we picked."

"Wait," Lydia said, shaking her head. "Ruth wrote me letters, tons of letters. She said you got a job with Charlie, factory work, that y'all were makin' good money and that's why you stayed. She sent money all the time, for momma and daddy… are you tellin' me that money was from robbing banks? That all that talk about factory jobs… that was all just a bunch of bullshit she made up so we wouldn't know y'all were criminals?" Max stared long and hard at Lydia from across the room, and she shook her head, breathing hard.

"My sister…" she said, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. "God, what happened to her?"

"Ruth had a good heart, Lydia, you know that," Max said. "Charlie did too, deep down. He just got caught up in the wrong crowd, and she loved him too much. If Ruth had a real flaw, that was it—she loved people too damn much." He looked directly at Brennan when he said it, as if making sure she really understood. She swallowed hard.

"Then what?" she asked.

"Well," Max said, "We joined up and ran with them, with Charlie. The problem was that Charlie was an idiot and kept shootin' his mouth off to people with a lot more guns and a lot less conscience than him. He thought he could be one of the bad guys, but he couldn't, he just didn't have it in him. He got into it real bad with one guy, Harvey McVicar—"

"McVicar?" Booth and Brennan asked simultaneously. Max's expression darkened.

"Yeah, McVicar," he said. "Bet you can guess who his brother was."

"No," Brennan said, mouth agape in mild horror. Booth set his jaw.

"Who?" Lydia asked.

"Vince McVicar," Brennan said. "The man who killed my mother."


	9. The Voices of Those Who Stand Looking

**A/N:** I didn't want to make you wait too long for the second half of Max's story, so here it is, and then some. :) Let me know what you're thinking!

* * *

_ I'm gonna be here for you from now on  
This you know somehow  
You've been stretched to the limits  
But it's alright now..._

_- Making Memories of Us, Keith Urban_

* * *

The room went silent, and finally Max cleared his throat.

"That's who killed Charlie," he finally said. "Harvey. He was one of the ringleaders there in the beginning, him and his brothers and a few friends; that's how the Strong Arm gang really started out, was those guys. Him and Charlie kept going at it and it finally blew up and Charlie got in a fight with the youngest brother, Rick. Rick was making threats on Charlie and Ruth and the whole family, saying if Charlie didn't do this and that him and Vince would go down to Florida and… anyway, there was a knife and I don't know if Charlie really thought Rick would kill them or if he just got mad, I dunno, but he picked it up… I still don't think he meant to kill Rick, I don't, but that's what happened."

"My cousin killed a man?" Esther asked, face puffy and red with tears. Lydia's breathing was haggard, as if she were trying very hard to maintain composure.

"Yes," Max said, without remorse. "That guy had it coming, he was a real sick job. But it wasn't twenty-four hours later, Charlie gets found dead in his apartment, hole punched right out of the back of his head."

"Slaughter gun?" Brennan asked, remembering the glancing blow that ended up killing her own mother. Max nodded.

"You got it," he said. "The McVicars have always been pig farmers, as far back as their people go. Whether they're in Virginia or Ohio, it doesn't matter—they stick to what they know. Local cops were already starting to get in cahoots with the gang, though, so nobody ever investigated the murder. That was the end of Charlie, and after then we knew we were skating on thin ice. They didn't want us dead, though—me and Ruth were damn good at what we did, and for as long as we were with them, we did a hell of a job. It wasn't 'til we ran out that they started having problems with Ruth's family again.

"After we left was when we started getting letters, calls, bricks through our windows—threats on us, our kids, Ruth's family. I never really had any family, besides my ma and that one uncle, but they knew Ruth's people through Charlie and they were clear about it. They'd kill us, they said, and the whole rest of her family. That's when we fell off the radar completely—new names, new faces, new lives."

"I wouldn't'a recognized you," Lydia admitted, referring to the cosmetic surgery that had reshaped Max's face. "I only knew it was you 'cause Mema told me. I guess it wasn't age that changed ya, huh?" Max shook his head.

"Not that much," he said. "Anyway, we fell off, and for years we stayed off. It was, what, thirteen years before they found us again?"

"I was fifteen," Brennan said.

"And you were two when we went under," Max said. "So yeah, thirteen years on the nose."

"That's why she stopped writing," Lydia realized sadly. "All those years y'all were up there, she wrote me all the time, and called when she could. She always wrote, at least once a month or so, askin' me about everyone—who was pregnant, who got married, askin' for me to send pictures."

"It was hard on her," Max said. "To be away from her family. She knew you'd be in more danger if we went back, though—it would be leading them right to you, and she knew that." Lydia sat for a moment, staring down into her hands. She got up suddenly, walking into a back room. They held their breath collectively until she returned with a worn-out photograph in her hands. She handed it to Brennan.

"That's the last picture your momma ever sent me," she said. "In the last letter she ever wrote. She said y'all were movin' again, and she'd write me from the new address once y'all got settled. She never did, and that was the last I ever heard of her." Brennan looked down at the picture—it was a photograph of herself at two years of age, sitting on the sofa next to Russ. Russ smiled directly into the camera while Brennan, who didn't seem to notice that a picture was being taken of her at all, stared off at something in the other direction so that the photograph captured her only in profile.

"Vince McVicar finally caught up to us in Pennsylvania, in ninety-three," Max explained. "We were in the car, and he had that pig gun…" Max paused, collecting himself. "He grazed her, just grazed her. I told her she needed to go to the doctor, but she said she was fine, it was just a scrape. She said she was fine and I believed her. That's why it's my fault, Lydia. I didn't mean to kill her, but I let her die. I listened to her and I let her die, and you'll never know how sorry I am for it." Lydia leaned back in the chair with her arms crossed, staring at Max down her crooked nose. She sighed.

"I spent a long time blamin' you for takin' my big sister away from me," Lydia said. "First y'all moved so far I never got to see her, then she stopped callin', stopped writin' letters… I figured you got her so far away she couldn't have nothin' to do with us anymore. I thought you didn't want her to have to do with us anymore." Max shook his head.

"She thought it was safer for you," he insisted. "If she stayed away, she thought you'd have a better chance. That was what Ruth did—if she saw someone she loved in danger, she'd grab the bait and run the other way with it. Better her in trouble, she figured, than her sisters. Than her children."

There was a long quietness that followed, where everyone seemed to gather their thoughts individually. The tension that crackled through the room previously had dissipated, replaced by a penitent sadness.

"Why are you tellin' me this now?" Lydia finally asked, breaking the silence in the room. "Why are you here, Max?"

"Because that's not the end of the story," Booth said before Max could answer. "Harvey swore to avenge Rick's death, and that meant killing _all _of Charlie and Ruth's people. Not just Charlie and Ruth, but their entire family. He's not done yet, is he Max?" Max didn't say anything, but sighed in a very heavy way that indicated Booth's conclusion was accurate.

"I've spent years keeping tabs on you guys," Max said to Lydia. "From a distance, you know—you didn't need to know what Charlie had accidentally dragged you into. It was better you didn't."

"That's how you knew my name," Charlene said wisely. Max smiled.

"Yeah," he said. "That's how I knew your name, all of you. Even after the FBI broke up the gang, I was afraid Harvey would still be sore from what Charlie did to his brother. I knew he was still out there—they'd never caught him, and they had Vince under witness protection so he was a loaded canon… Ruth's proof of that. There was another brother, Dave, and a cousin, Carl. Harvey, Vince, Dave, Carl, and Rick, that was the whole core of it, right there. Even after the FBI sting, they never really got to the core. Harvey, Carl, and Dave went underground and never got caught, and it wasn't 'til a few years ago that they finally pinned Vince for Ruth's murder."

"How'd they do that?" Lydia asked. Max smiled and tilted his head towards Brennan.

"Ask her, she's the one who got him," he said proudly. "Anyway, Booth's right—Harvey made a promise. He said he'd kill Charlie's family for what Charlie did to his brother, and as long as he lives, he's gonna try to make good on that promise." There was an ominous pause before someone spoke again.

"Are you trying to tell me that a bunch of underground criminals have some sort of… of family feud with us, are tryin' to kill us?" Judy asked, incredulous.

"I know it's hard to believe…" Max started.

"Hard to believe?" Judy asked. "It's fuckin' nuts, is what it is. You think I'm gonna fall for that shit? What are you really here for, Max?"

"Judy, I couldn't make this up if I wanted to," Max said. "I've been watching you, all of you, all those years I was underground. You don't get to be a con man as long as me without getting a lot of favors owed to you. I called in on a lot of those favors over the years, sending guys to make sure you were safe."

"Like when?" Judy asked, calling his bluff.

"Ten years ago, when you got carjacked in the parking lot outside the bar where you were working," Max said to Judy. "Remember that?"

"Do I!" Judy said. "Broad daylight, middle of the afternoon, I couldn't believe it. I ain't no sooner pulled into the parking lot when some psycho ran out of the bushes and held me up with a knife." Max nodded.

"Well, I got wind from a guy that owed me that Harvey was sending a guy to carjack you after work, on the anniversary of the day Rick got killed," he said. "So I sent my guy to make sure that didn't happen." Judy stared at Max, looking both agitated and extremely perplexed.

"So, wait… you heard I was gonna get carjacked _after_ work, so you sent a guy to carjack me _before_ work? How the hell was that helpin' me?"

"Because the guy Harvey sent to carjack you was going to kill you!" Max said loudly. "My guy didn't kill you, he didn't even rough you up. And Esther," Max said, turning to the portly blonde. "Remember when those guys trashed your car and the outside of the house, and left that kitschy cut-and-paste note on the windshield saying they'd be back? Remember how the cops staked out the place for a week, just waiting for them?"

"Yeah," she said, furrowing her brows. "Are you telling me you sent them too?"

"Someone I knew, knew someone who knew a guy who had been paid off a big sum to kill some lady in BFE, Florida," Max explained. "Guess who hired him? Harvey. Guess who was the lady in BFE, Florida?"

"I still don't know what that means," Brennan grumbled.

"You!" Max said, pointing at Esther. "But since your house was under surveillance that whole week, guess who didn't get killed? You!"

"So that's how you been 'looking out' for us?" Lydia asked. "You get your criminal pals to vandalize and rob us so we won't get murdered?"

"It's an imperfect system," Max admitted. "But essentially, yes. But about four years ago when the FBI got on my tail, I started to lose my, uh, _popularity_ in the underground circles. No one wanted to talk to me, they didn't want to get too close in case I got nailed. I lost my contacts, and whatever the McVicars were planning, I was out of the loop."

"That's my fault," Brennan said, realizing what had happened four years ago. "When I started looking for you, dad, that's when you lost your connections."

"Honey, you were just doing your job," Max said comfortingly. "Besides, you don't work for the FBI, Booth does." The eyes of the room turned to Booth, whose face flushed.

"What?" he asked the room at large.

"How come the FBI didn't know about all this goin' on?" Sarah Leigh asked.

"Yeah," Judy said. "Aren't y'all supposed to be the Federal Bureau of _Investigation?_ Y'all don't look like y'all been doing much in the way of investigatin' anything, 'cept maybe the inside of a donut box…"

"Hey, this isn't exactly surface stuff going on," Booth defended. "This is all underground. All of the crimes you reported were individual cases, with no visible connection. Our people wouldn't be notified about that kind of thing, that's local. Blame Clay County SO."

"So what happened to Abby and Robbie and Laura, you think that's got to do with it?" Lydia asked hesitantly. Max's expression darkened.

"Honestly? Yeah, I do. I don't think the McVicars are doing their own work anymore, probably, but I'd bet anything they've got other people doing the jobs for them."

"Sean's murder too, dad," Brennan added. "Booth just went to the sheriff's department this morning to get the Armstrong evidence to send to the Jeffersonian, and I asked him to get the evidence and file from Sean's case as well. There might be a connection between the two."

"You think so?" Max asked Booth, who rubbed his temples with his thumb and middle finger.

"It's possible," he said. "I still have to go over it in depth, but just from what I've read so far, it looks like a rifle was used in the shootings of Sean, Abby, Robbie, and Laura. Gun homicides using rifles are really uncommon, so it's likely that the bullets came from the same gun."

"We can send the shells to the Jeffersonian," Brennan said. "They'll be able to identify if they were shot from the same gun."

"They can do that?" Esther asked. Sarah Leigh made a nasal noise.

"Aunt Esther, you _got_ to get a converter box," Sarah Leigh said. "They got shows that show you all kind of crazy stuff cops can do nowadays. They look at the grooves the gun leaves on the bullet shell and they can match 'em to prove they came from the same gun."

"That's… correct," Brennan said, surprised by her knowledge. "Hopefully they'll be able to match the shell from the bullet that killed Sean to the shells found at Abby and Robbie's home. That would prove at least that the same gun was used to kill all four people."

"What about Frank?" Lydia asked Booth or Max, whoever might be able to answer. "My husband, he was killed four years ago, got run down in a parking lot. You think maybe that's got to do with it too?" Booth shrugged.

"Anything's possible, I guess," he sighed. "I mean, with everything that just got put on the table… I just need to think for a little minute, excuse me." The rain had finally stopped, so Booth let himself out through the back door, trekking across the wet grass and off towards the dock. Brennan rose from where she had taken a seat on the floor, and followed him out the door.

He was walking down the narrow wooden dock, hands shoved in his pockets, and she could see the frustration in his step. She followed him carefully down the wood-planked walk, taking careful steps—the wood was slick from the rain, and a fall here would mean dropping ten feet into a marsh undoubtedly teeming with cottonmouths, snapping turtles, and possibly gators. It was not exactly the type of afternoon swim she was interested in.

"Hey," she said when she reached the large rectangular end of the dock. Booth stood near its edge, hands still in his pockets, looking out at the wide river before them. She took in the view as well—it was a different river than the one she had seen that morning. Earlier the sky had been a bright, clear blue, without any sign of the torrential downpour that would come only hours later. Now it was blanketed in downy grey clouds that stretched from end to end, revealing none of the sun beyond it. Without the sparkle of the sun reflecting off its surface the river looked dark and impenetrable, the troubled water crashing up against the posts that supported the dock and tearing at the marsh grass. The trees that lined the opposite shore were barely visible through the haze that had settled on the river in the rain's wake, and the way Booth stared out at the distant shoreline, it was as if he were looking for something even beyond that.

"Hey," he finally responded, not looking quite at her.

"You alright?" she asked quietly. He nodded, blowing a sigh out of his nose.

"It's just a lot," Booth said as a gust of humid wind blew past the pair. "To take in, you know? I knew your dad knew something, but I had no idea…"

"It is a lot," Brennan said, sticking her thumbs in her own pockets and letting the sticky wind tangle her hair. "I feel bad for them."

"Your family?" he asked. She nodded.

"They're not used to it," she said. "We work murder cases all the time, but they don't. It's not fair for them to suddenly be…" She threw her hands up in the air, trying to gesticulate in place of the words she couldn't conjure up.

"Right in the middle of it," Booth filled in for her.

"Yeah," she said lamely, letting her hands fall to her sides. "I remember when dad killed Kirby, when that entire conspiracy was being uncovered. I remember how confusing and disturbing it was, to suddenly realize you're in the middle of this underground violence and that your life is in danger, real danger. I wish it wasn't happening to them too." When Booth didn't respond she looked to her left and saw that he was surveying her with a look of peculiarity—his brows were drawn as if he were in deep consideration, but he was also smiling, if only barely. As her own brows furrowed in question, his smile widened.

"What?" she asked. He shook his head, turning back towards the river.

"Nothing," he said. "It's just… yesterday you met these people for the first time, and you couldn't even imagine being related to them. And now today, listening to you talk about them… you care for them, you feel for them. You constantly belittle your own ability to relate to people but in reality, Temperance, when you decide to love somebody, for whatever reason… you really love them. Already you've made a connection, already you've decided they're yours and you're going to love them, and you hardly even know them."

"Is there something wrong with that?" Brennan asked, not sure how to take Booth's comment. He shook his head.

"Not at all," he said. "I think it's great. I just wish you saw how much love you really have to give… how much love you give without even seeing it. Do you even realize how much those people already mean to you?" She didn't answer, but looked out at the dark, choppy river water.

"You're a lot more like your dad than you realize," he said after a moment.

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"You are," he repeated. "All it took was for you to know they were your family, that they were _your people_, and you took to them like that." He snapped his fingers to accent the point. "For all their flaws, for all their problems, for all the stress this whole thing's put on you—and don't lie, I know it stresses you out, I can see it in your face—you haven't shown one sign of walking out that door. You haven't thought once about turning and leaving, letting them fight their own fight. They're yours, and you're gonna stick by them no matter what happens. That's your dad in you, Bones, whether you like it or not. You may not be manipulative or sly like Max, but you've got that loyalty in you. You won't let go of the people you care about."

Brennan finally made herself look away after he had finished speaking, out at the river and then down at her own feet.

"I don't want anything to happen to them," she said quietly to her feet. "I just found out I had them, they just came into my life… I don't want to lose them now." Booth draped his arm around her waist and pulled her in towards him. She let her arms snake around his middle, cheek resting comfortably on his shoulder.

"Don't worry," Booth said, taking a chance and gently kissing the top of her head like a damselfly landing weightlessly on the tip of a marsh reed. "I won't let that happen."


	10. What I Wouldn't Give for a Friend

**A/N:** I was going to apologize for the length of time between updates on this fic, until I looked at it and realized it hasn't really been _that_ long since my last update on this. I guess it just feels that way since in the meantime I've had like two updates on _The Mirror of a Bad Dream_ as well as writing some other oneshots. Funny how it can feel like so much longer. Anyway, I absolutely loved your feedback on the last two chapters, and was happy to hear that you felt like it was an appropriate weaving of what we already know about Ruth and Max's past, with my own artistic liberties. Hopefully you enjoy this chapter too... it's kind of another one of those where nothing really happens, which I've realized after a certain amount of re-reading that I write an _awful_ lot of. Maybe I'll stop doing that so much in the future... but probably not. :) Enjoy!

* * *

_Well, I've been afraid of changing  
'Cause I built my life around you  
But time makes you bolder  
Children get older  
I'm getting older too..._

_- Landslide, The Dixie Chicks  
_

* * *

Later that evening John and Mike offered to drive into town for dinner, and came back with several large pizzas from a local pizzeria. By local, Brennan learned, they meant within thirty miles. They packed Lydia's house to the gills, all of them sitting or standing as they ate, talking in small groups among themselves. Brennan sat back on the couch with her legs crossed, paper plate in her lap, as she watched them.

In the kitchen Lydia, Esther, and Judy talked with Max in low voices, occasionally looking out at the living room before ducking their heads back into conversation. Booth sat at the dinette with John and Mike, the three of them swapping stories about God only knew what back and forth over the cramped table. In the far corner of the living room a card table had been set up with a few fold-out chairs, and Charlene tended to the multitude of children who sat clustered around it, baby Bethany balanced on her hip almost as a side thought. Sarah Leigh had already left for work, just barely missing the pizza like two ships passing in the night. Brennan was content to find herself in the seat of the observer, passively watching other people interact, classifying their behaviors within the cultural context.

After some time had passed, Brennan became aware of someone sitting down next to her. She turned and saw the white-haired woman she had been vaguely introduced to earlier, small wrinkled hands folded in her lap, surveying her with sharp blue eyes through thick square frames. They sat for a moment, just staring at each other, before Mema finally broke a smile.

"You look so much like Ruth," she said, eyes trailing across Brennan's features lazily, almost basking in them. "When you were a baby it was hard to tell who you'd take after, from the pictures anyway. After you were two, we didn't see you again, so no one could say…" Mema reached out and touched Brennan's arm affectionately. "But you certainly became your mother's child."

"Thank you," Brennan said, deciding to take the observation as a compliment. Mema nodded and leaned back into the lumpy couch, ankles crossed delicately, seeming just as content as Brennan was to watch the going-ons around her from a quiet distance. For a while, they did—the two of them sitting together, not bothering with trivial conversation, just watching everyone else joke, laugh, converse, and fuss with one another. It wasn't until Molly and a man who could easily rival Booth in size and stature walked through the door, trailed by a little redheaded boy with a sour look on his face, that Mema finally spoke again.

"Bless his heart," she said sadly.

"Whose?" Brennan asked.

"Brandon's," Mema said, watching the little boy trail his father who spoke to Molly in a low, angry hiss until they were intercepted by Charlene, whose presence forced the man into a polite smile. "That poor boy's folks fight night and day and he's always right in the middle of it." Brennan realized that this 'bless his heart' was meant in a positive way—there was, she had learned, also a negative double-meaning attached to the phrase if used in a certain context. How to differentiate the contexts was a skill she was still trying to acquire.

"Is that Eric?" Brennan asked, not having met Molly's infamous husband yet. Mema nodded, her lined face cool and distant.

"The devil himself," she said in an undertone as she lifted herself from the couch, crossing the living room and taking Molly's hands in hers as she pecked her on the cheek. Eric leaned down and gave Mema the obligatory cheek kiss, and Brennan watched as the elderly woman's steely expression remained constant throughout the encounter.

Eric was tall and thick, and looked like he could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Booth on a defensive line. His short auburn hair did nothing to hide the thick, square shape of his head, like a stone with human features carved from it. He had a strong jaw and a thin-lipped but handsome face, though it was presently twisted with the subdued anger that had been on display when they first entered the house. Brandon had most of his father's looks, though he was quite fair and freckled, and wore a very unhappy look on his face. Brennan watched Mema sweep the boy up into a hug and plant a kiss on him, finally eliciting a smile.

Eric made his way to the men's table and was introduced to Booth, who from a distance Brennan could see sizing the man up with his gaze. After having something explained to him by Mike, Eric turned and looked directly at Brennan on the couch, appearing somewhat surprised. She assumed he had just learned the nature of her identity, and gave him a half wave from where she sat. He ambled over to her and stuck his hand out.

"Hey, I'm Eric, Molly's husband," he said, and she found that his smile had almost all of Booth's disarming charm. Almost. There was still something there, something broiling beneath it, that she did not like, and she could not tell if she had been predisposed to dislike him or if it was something she had detected on her own.

"Temperance," she said, shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you." He nodded, and that was that. Molly took a seat next to her on the couch and Eric went back to the table, and Brennan found herself glad their brief interaction had been cut short.

"Finally got to meet Eric, huh?" Molly asked, her voice frayed. Her face was tight, as if imaginary hands forced the corners of her mouth up into a smile, and her hands toyed with the edge of her blouse anxiously. She swallowed and re-plastered the smile on her face, and Brennan nodded.

"Yeah," she said, not knowing what else to say. "He seems nice," she added weakly.

"He can be," Molly said, her false cheer undercut by a cynical bite she could not control. Having heard it in her tone, Molly stood suddenly, as if called to attention. "Excuse me," she said, letting herself out the back door. Brennan bit her lip, unsure of whether to follow her or just let her be. As poor as she was at discerning emotions and choosing the right words to say in hard situations, she felt she would probably do more harm than good if she went to speak to Molly outside.

Then Booth's words from earlier rang through her mind—_When you decide to love somebody, you really love them_—and she sighed and lifted herself up from the couch, following Molly's tracks out the back door. She found her sitting in a fold-out lawn chair by the fire pit, which was dark and empty, but staring at it as if it were alight. Brennan took a hesitant seat in another chair.

"I'm sorry," Molly said, blessedly breaking the silence so that Brennan wouldn't have to. Her entire body seemed to sag in the chair, tired eyes still fixed on the charcoal remains in the pit. Though she was within a year or two of Brennan's own age, she seemed older, more worn out, not unlike Charlene. They both bore the same hints of exhaustion around their tired eyes, their weak smiles, and in the soft sighs before they spoke. Life was wearing them thin.

"You don't have to apologize," Brennan said. "I understand the need to excuse yourself from a difficult social situation. I just couldn't tell if… I don't know, if you wanted to discuss your feelings, or if you genuinely just want to be left alone. I'm not very good at picking up those kinds of cues."

Molly sighed weightily, shifting in the chair so that she was leaning in on her knees with her elbows. With one hand she picked up a small stick discarded by whoever had sat there before her, and began drawing in the dirt at her feet. The floodlight hanging above the back door across the stretch partially illuminated the two of them, seated on the far fringe of its reach, but cast more details of the night into the absconding shadows than it revealed. Molly looked up at Brennan and smiled, the distant light vaguely lighting one half of her face and shadowing the other.

"I appreciate it," she finally said. "There's just not much to talk about. Eric was being an ass in the car on the way here, and got me upset. It's hard when you get all worked up about somethin', then gotta come into the house with everyone and act like it's fine. I just needed a minute, you know?" Brennan nodded.

"I understand that."

"They can be pretty overwhelming, huh?" Molly said, and Brennan knew she was referring to the family in the house. Brennan smiled almost sheepishly.

"At first," she admitted. "I think I'm getting more used to the… what's the word…"

"Chaos," Molly filled in. "It's chaos. At least you're gettin' there. I've lived in it for thirty-two years and I still have to step out sometimes just to breathe. You just don't get no space, no time to think or just sit before someone's screamin' or fussin' or pitchin' a fit about something. I'm not just talkin' about the kids, either."

"I suppose with that many people living in such close proximity, it's difficult to find alone time for introspection," Brennan said.

"It is," Molly agreed. "I feel bad puttin' Eleanor and Brandon off on mom all the time, but sometimes I'm at work ten or twelve hours a day, and I just can't come home and deal with dinner and homework and all the fussin' with each other, I can't do it. Mom only works half-time anymore, since she collects on dad's pension, so she's home by the time they get out of school. It's just better for them, and me. It's better for all of us, really. I feel like that makes me a bad mother, but…"

"It doesn't," Brennan insisted. "Modern Western culture holds women to impossible standards—today's adult female is expected to be the successful career woman of the twenty-first century, as well as the doting mother and housewife of previous eras. Women are expected to fully occupy two completely different spheres, to juggle them perfectly without missing a beat in either realm, and it's just not feasible. If women are expected to occupy both spheres, the household and the broader world, men should be held to equivalent standards." Molly let out a derisive laugh, almost like a cough.

"Try telling that to Eric," she said. "The day he folds his own laundry or does a load of dishes is gonna be a cold day in hell. _Women's work_, that's what he calls it. He thinks I should stay home all day and clean house, let him make the money."

"That's asinine," Brennan said. Molly nodded.

"You'd think so 'specially if you saw his paycheck," she said quietly, as if he might overhear her. "We can't live on that, all four of us, and put money where we need to for the future. Whether he likes it or not, my kids are goin' to college."

"Whether he likes it or not?" Brennan repeated. Molly sighed.

"If Eric had his way," she said, "Brandon would take up after him at the dairy, and Eleanor would be someone's little housewife. He doesn't think they need to go to college, 'cause he didn't."

"That's ridiculous," Brennan said, slightly mortified by the idea of a father not encouraging his children to seek higher education. She couldn't imagine her father having done that to her as a child—for as long as she could remember, the expectation was that she and Russ would both go to college. She, at least, fully met that expectation.

"It's toxic, is what it is," Molly said. "It takes all I've got to make sure Brandon doesn't think the same way. He actually said to me the other day, 'Momma, I ain't gonna fold my laundry.' I said to him, 'Yes you are' and he says to me, 'Nut uh, that's women's work.' I was so mad, I sent him down the street to mom's 'cause I was like to beat the shit out of him if he stayed. I couldn't believe it!"

"Did he end up folding his laundry?" Brennan couldn't help but ask. She saw the lit half of Molly's face smile wickedly.

"Damn straight he folded his laundry," she said. "His, Eleanor's, mine, his father's, the towels, every damn thing that came out of that dryer for the next week and a half. He makes nice little creases now, too." Brennan couldn't help but laugh, and Molly joined in with her.

"You strike me as a very intelligent woman," Brennan finally said after the laughter had died down. Molly looked down at the ground, trying humbly to hide her smile.

"Thank you," she said. "But you're, you know, real smart. You went to school, got your Ph.D., work in a museum."

"Yes, I suppose I am," Brennan said plainly. "But if you'd had the resources, I feel confident in saying that you would have done extremely well in a higher education setting. Anyone can learn semantic, factual information, but not everyone comes by innate, natural intelligence. That kind of rationality and thought procedure can't be taught, and some are considerably more endowed than others. I think you're one of those people, college or no." Molly looked up, and Brennan could see in the weak light that her eyes were damp.

"You just don't even know how much it means to hear someone say that," she said. "Especially someone like you. A lot of people think if you don't have a degree, you must be stupid. There's an awful lot of prejudice out there, just based on that, and it ain't right." Brennan considered her words for a moment before responding.

"I used to be one of those people," she admitted. "I used to judge individuals based on their level of attained education, or their academic acclaim, or their socioeconomic status. I'm an anthropologist, I should've known better than to believe those things were the only indicators of intelligence. They are significant indicators, certainly, but not the only ones."

"What changed your mind on it?" Molly asked. Brennan shrugged.

"I don't really know," she said, but her thoughts drifted elsewhere. "I suppose through my work with the FBI, I was introduced to a broader spectrum of people, with multiple types of intelligence that spanned far beyond pure academic intellect." Molly nodded in understanding, then gave Brennan a little smile.

"Well, it takes a big person to admit they were wrong about anything," she said. "Honestly, it's somethin' I'm still not very good at. I'll hit myself in the head with a hammer for years, and still think for some reason that it don't hurt."

"Why on earth would you do that?" Brennan asked, thinking perhaps she had misread Molly's previously displayed intelligence. Molly laughed—really laughed, throwing her head back and letting the sound echo into the darkness—and stood from her seat.

"You are funny, aren't you?" she asked, giving Brennan a hand up out of her chair. "Come on, let's get back in there before they come lookin' for us. God forbid they find you taking five minutes to yourself, they'll think you're sick or depressed or gettin' into trouble."

* * *

**A/N: **I don't know about you, but my family is totally like that. If we're all together for whatever reason and someone steps outside or into another room to take five minutes to themselves, it won't be long before someone pokes their head in and says, "What are you doing? What's wrong? Come back in here with everyone else." I really don't know why, they're just like that... and I'm the type of person who really relishes having some moments to myself, especially if I've been with a big group of people for an extended period of time, so it feels like someone is always looking for me and wondering what I'm up to, and why. I guess I should be happy they care so much? Haha... anyway, let me know what you think of the chapter!


	11. I Will Love and Have No Fear

**A/N:** Don't shoot! I know it's been over two weeks since I last updated this, _I know_, I'm sorry. It's not even like I have a good excuse, because I've been writing oneshots and updating my other chaptered fic with relative frequency. It's just that this one takes a lot more thought, so it takes more time to write out each chapter. I know I've said that before and it's a lame excuse, but it's all I've got. :) Anyway, I'm done making excuses for my slacker updating... let me know what you think of this chapter! And yes, I promise, we will be getting into the case itself in the next chapter (finally).

* * *

_So much pain and so much darkness  
In this world we stumble through  
All these questions I can't answer  
So much work to do..._

_- When I Get Where I'm Going, Brad Paisley_

* * *

The next morning Brennan stood in the cramped bathroom with Sarah Leigh, who was working very hard to force the zipper of one of her black dresses up Brennan's back. Sarah Leigh let go of the zipper, stepping back and huffing aggravatedly.

"You gotta suck it in tighter'n that, or this dress ain't never gonna fit," she fired.

"I can't 'suck it in' any more than I already am or I'll pass out," Brennan hissed. Sarah Leigh sighed, taking the zipper in between her fingers again and attempting to tug it upward. She fought it for another minute or so, managing to get it as far as Brennan's shoulder blades before it absolutely would not budge another inch. She gave up, throwing her hands into the air.

"You just ain't a four," she announced, defeated.

"I'm aware," Brennan said, slipping out of the too-small dress after Sarah Leigh undid the zipper.

"You know, I think Molly's a six, or an eight," Sarah Leigh said. "I'll call her up and see if she got anything you can wear to the funeral." Sarah Leigh stepped out of the bathroom, leaving Brennan standing barefoot in her underclothes, shivering slightly. The door was left cracked, and before she could shut it all the way, someone swung it open.

"Hey, are you—oh, sorry, my bad," Booth said, poking his head into the bathroom and quickly turning a wondrous shade of magenta. He screwed his eyes shut, and Brennan felt her own face and neck flare.

"I don't understand what the big deal is," she said despite her embarrassment, reaching for a towel hanging over the shower and wrapping it around herself for extra coverage. "It's just like a bathing suit, as far as skin cover."

"No, it's not," Booth said, eyes still shut, head resting against the doorframe. "Bathing suits aren't all…"

"All what?" she asked, taking a seat on the toilet lid.

"Lacy," he finally choked out. "Anyway, I guess you're not almost ready, then."

"I'm covered, you know," she said, and he opened his eyes and looked relieved to find that she was. "And no, Sarah Leigh's dress didn't fit. She's phoning Molly to see if she has an extra. I wish I had brought something to wear."

"Well Bones, most normal people don't pack for a funeral when they go on a business trip," Booth pointed out, his frame now filling the doorway. His attire was fairly casual, khaki slacks and a collared shirt, but there was really nobody anywhere near his size who he could borrow clothing from.

"Bingo," Sarah Leigh said, squeezing past Booth back into the bathroom. "Molly's got a dress that oughta fit you. She said she'll bring it down, and we can all ride over to the church from here."

oOoOoOoOo

Thirty minutes later they had loaded up into various vehicles and drove caravan-style towards the small church that served the rural area. Brennan smoothed the lap of Molly's dress—which actually fit her very well—as Booth drove the two of them plus Sarah Leigh in his SUV. Brennan looked at Sarah Leigh through the rear-view mirror as she stared out the window, oblivious to the fact. She looked almost peculiar to Brennan, in a dress that covered her cleavage and a shrug that shielded her tattoos from view. Modest, that was the word. There was nothing inherently modest about Sarah Leigh, so to see her dressed in such a way made her appear a bit like a dog in a sweater; out of place.

"You'll get to meet Darren," Sarah Leigh said, suddenly looking up from the window and breaking the silence. "Molly's brother. Past few days he's been up in town, but he'll be there."

"Oh," Brennan said, wondering if the endless stream of relatives would ever run dry. It was, she had decided, not likely.

"What was he up in Green Cove for?" Booth asked out of curiosity, turning with the rest of the trucks and cars ahead of him down a narrow limestone path away from the river side of the road, towards a clearing peppered with magnolias.

"Not Green Cove, Jacksonville," she said. "One of his congregation was real sick, they got her up at the Mayo clinic there. She's an old lady, 'bout to kick it, really. They might as well just keep her there for as much driving her back and forth as they do." Whatever sympathy she started out with was shed by the end of her statement, and Brennan smiled—you could dress her up, but you couldn't tone her down.

"His congregation?" Brennan asked.

"Yeah, didn't they tell you? Darren's a pastor." Booth snorted, and Sarah Leigh gave him a sour look.

"What's so funny about that?" she asked. He shook his head, trying not to smile.

"Bones doesn't… well…"

"I don't believe in God," Brennan cut off, saying it for him. Sarah Leigh's eyes widened, her dark brows rising up towards her hairline. She scooted back in her seat slightly, as if subconsciously she was afraid of being hit by the lightning bolt intended for her cousin at that moment.

"Seriously?" Sarah Leigh asked. Brennan nodded.

"Yes," she said. "I believe religion is an antiquated institution, an invention of human culture utilized by humans to try and rationalize the pain and suffering encountered in life, and as an explanation for the laws of the universe. Now that we have science, we don't need religion—since we know how things work, why continue worshiping a fake deity with supposed 'supernatural' power that cannot be empirically proven?"

"Mm, well, you make sure you don't sit next to me when we get there, alright?" Sarah Leigh said, pressing her lips together and shaking her head. "I ain't exactly God's favorite kid to begin with; I need all the help I can get." At this point Booth was trying very, very hard not to laugh, practically shaking from its suppression as he turned onto a smaller road. Brennan looked perplexed.

"I don't understand," Brennan said. "You seem like a fairly rational person. You live your life according to your own moral code, without regard to some of the weaker folkways and mores of American culture. You have tattoos, you dress provocatively, a large sum of your income is paid by drunk, sexually-stimulated men. Those things all seem very contrary to the belief in a Christian God."

"Well excuse the hell out of me!" Sarah Leigh said, loudly enough to make Booth's ears ring. "I know I ain't perfect, but I'm tryin' here! God don't expect us to be perfect, just to try, and to show some respect. Somethin' you might wanna learn how to do, 'specially 'fore you go walkin' into that church today." Brennan was taken aback by Sarah Leigh's outburst, surveying her over the back of the seat with a look of slight hurt.

"I'm… sorry," she said, having some difficulty saying the word as it was unnatural to her. She was very rarely sorry about anything. "I didn't mean to offend you, I was simply being honest."

"Well today we could do with a little less honest and a little more shut-up," Sarah Leigh sniffed. "This is Abby's funeral, and Robbie and Laura. I don't care what you believe, you better sit down and bow your head and pretend you're saved even if you're not, for everyone else's sake." Booth was uncharacteristically quiet, allowing Brennan to be chewed out by her cousin with tight lips. As coarse as Sarah Leigh was, she was absolutely right, and Brennan had to hear it from somebody if she was going to make it through the afternoon without burning some serious bridges.

"Okay," Brennan said quietly, turning around in her seat and facing forward again. She could see the church in the distance, a small white building set on the edge of a vast, empty field with a modest steeple and a rusty swing-set out back. The sky above them was bright and dotted with clouds, but in the distance, beyond the church and the line of pines behind it, heavy grey storm clouds were gathering steam for another afternoon thunderstorm.

"I don't mean to be ugly," Sarah Leigh added, the harshness gone from her tone. "Today's just a hard day, and I don't want anyone any more upset than they already are. And if you go around tellin' people you don't… well, they'd be real upset about it. So just keep it to yourself, okay? Please?"

"I understand," Brennan said as Booth parked outside of the church. She stepped out of the SUV and smoothed her dress, and Sarah Leigh did the same. "I will."

"I know," Sarah Leigh said, smiling apologetically and pulling Brennan into a hug. "You know I love you, right? Now let's go—the sooner we start, the sooner it's over." Sarah Leigh set off towards the church and Brennan shook her head, smiling. She had never met someone quite like Sarah Leigh, who could jump from hot to cold in a matter of seconds; who could be so loving, but so sharp-tongued.

"Sarah Leigh is definitely something, isn't she?" Booth said as he meandered around the side of the vehicle, hands shoved in his pockets. Brennan sighed and nodded, following in her cousin's wake towards the church, which from closer up Brennan could see was rather old and worn-out.

"Yes, she is," Brennan agreed. A humid breeze—a precursor for the storm to come—seemed to usher the family into the church, which smelled a bit woody, the way the inside of a shed might. It was clean and bright, a long red carpet running down the length of the aisle, several rows of wooden pews lining either side. Since their bodies were still in the custody of the Jeffersonian, due to the physical damage and extreme rate of decomposition a Florida summer encourages, there were no coffins in the front of the church. Rather, there was a table set up with several vases of flowers, and a large framed picture of the late family.

Since everyone seemed to be waiting for someone else to arrive before they began, Brennan broke from the crowd and walked up to the picture to get a closer look. She had only ever seen her cousin Abby as a corpse, and did not want that to be her only memory of her. The woman in the picture was obviously Charlene's sister—they both had the same narrow nose and blue-grey eyes, though Abby was not as tall and willowy as Charlene. Her hair was also much darker than Charlene's dirty blonde, more akin to Sarah Leigh and Molly's dark color. Her husband was handsome, dark and sinewy, with a nose that appeared to have been broken in the past. The little girl looked quite a bit like Eleanor, though with very dark features and a less round face.

Seated in Abby's lap was a several-months younger Bethany. Brennan felt her heart ache for the baby—she would never know her parents, her older sister. Why she was spared, they might never know, but it came at a price nonetheless. _At least_, Brennan thought as she turned around, looking at the group mingling with one another, _she has the rest of them._

Soon a short, mostly bald man with a thin comb-over and narrow-set eyes entered the chapel, smiling warmly and shaking hands with the family.

"Temperance, c'mere," Lydia said, dragging her niece over to the man, who turned his head to the side slightly.

"Hi there, I don't think I know you," he said, holding his hand out to her.

"Temperance Brennan," she said, shaking it.

"She's one of Abby's cousins," Lydia explained. "She's Ruth's daughter." The man's eyes widened, and Brennan felt a little perturbed by the fact that everyone here seemed to know more about her family history than she ever had.

"Is that so?" he said, surveying her with greater interest. "Well, I'll be. Temperance, it's real nice to meet you, I'm Hank Tobner, head pastor here at Grace Baptist."

"Nice to meet you too, Mr. Tobner," Brennan said. He shook his head.

"Please, Hank," he said. "So Lydia, is everyone here?" She nodded.

"Darren just called," Lydia said, sounding disappointed. "Mrs. Avery is about to get pulled from her life support, God bless, so he won't be able to make it. I guess we'll just have to go on without him." she said. Hank patted her arm sadly.

"You don't have to be their glue today, Lydia," he said. "They're all adults now, they can hold themselves together. This is a sad day."

"Hank, don't you start on me," Lydia threatened the pastor.

"It's for your own good," he said, smiling. "Alright, let's start then." A ripple went through the crowd and they all took their seats, filling up every row of pews with family and many people who Brennan did not recognize, who she assumed were friends.

The service was touching, even to Brennan, who had never known any of the victims personally. It was obvious that the pastor knew the family well, for he shared several anecdotes about their experiences, both within and outside of the church. Everybody laughed, cried, and reminisced over the lives of Abby and Robbie, and their young daughter, who had barely begun to live at all. As many dead bodies as Brennan dealt with, she had been to very few funerals, and she found them to be very interesting ceremonies, as they were all so different. While many were somber and tearful, this one was in many ways a cheerful celebration of their lives, rather than a marker of their deaths. By the time it was over, the entire room seemed to be collectively a little lighter than before, a little less burdened.

oOoOoOoOo

After the funeral service there was a buffet-style lunch and get-together at Mema's house, which nearly everyone at the funeral attended. Brennan was amazed by the amount of food prepared for the event—mountains of potato salad, huge aluminum trays of pulled pork barbecue and baked beans, bowls of greens and snap beans and fried okra the likes of which she had never seen before. There was even a small tray of something unidentified and grisly, apparently deep fried, that few people touched and even fewer people would name outright when she asked what it was. Mostly she got laughter and a few responses of, "Those are, well, you know…"

"Gizzards," Sarah Leigh finally said of the unmentionables, shoveling chunks of bright yellow potato salad onto her plate.

"What?" Booth asked, scooping the barbecue onto seeded buns with gusto. There had not been a pre-funeral breakfast, so he'd been running on fumes all morning.

"Gizzards," Sarah Leigh repeated. "You know, chicken gizzards."

"What's a gizzard?" Booth asked. Sarah Leigh shrugged.

"Dunno, but they're good," she said, adding a few to her plate.

"Gizzards are an organ found in birds, to aid in the digestion of tough seeds and other faunal foods," Brennan explained. "It's essentially a very tough muscle that partially digests very fibrous material before it reaches the stomach."

"That's… disgusting," Booth said, opting to bypass the bird parts and following Sarah Leigh out to the back patio, where a wooden picnic table had an open bench.

"Well, that's what it is," Brennan said, taking the end seat next to Booth, who was squeezed between Sarah Leigh and Brennan on the wooden bench. On the bench across the table from them Maggie, Maya, and Eleanor sat, fidgeting in the chiffon church dresses they had worn to the funeral, poking at the food on their plates and eyeing Booth and Brennan with curiosity. "You know, throughout the rest of the world, almost nothing edible on an animal is wasted. Our culture is incredibly picky about what parts of an animal we find fit for consumption. The brains, hearts, stomachs, all nutritionally valuable organs, all wasted by Western society."

"Because it's not right to eat those parts," Booth argued after swallowing down a large bite of his sandwich.

"You only think that because you've been enculturated to feel that way," Brennan pointed out. "There's nothing inherently unclean or inedible about, say, an animal's stomach."

"Then why doesn't anybody eat them?" Booth challenged.

"People do eat them! The Scottish eat sheep's stomach routinely, what do you think haggis is?"

"Haggis is sheep's stomach?" Booth asked, looking mortified.

"Yes, Booth, how could you not know that?" she asked. He set the uneaten half of his sandwich on his plate, looking pale.

"Because I don't usually ask what part of an animal I'm about to eat, I just assume it's the right part!" he said, screwing his eyes shut.

"I take it you've eaten haggis?" Brennan asked, amused.

"I'm not hungry anymore," he said, pushing his plate away.

"Can I have the rest of it, then?" Sarah Leigh asked, completely unfazed by the conversation. He nodded and she pulled the plate over, digging in.

"Booth, as many severely decomposed bodies as we deal with in our line of work, a little sheep's stomach shouldn't bother you," she pointed out.

"Yeah but I don't have to _eat_ those," he said. "Speaking of work, Cam called me earlier. She wants us to set up a live feed tomorrow morning so we can go over the evidence they've found so far, for the Armstrongs and Sean."

"We? I thought I wasn't allowed to work the case," Brennan said. "Conflict of interest, remember?"

"You're not," he said. "But I was thinking about it, and if you're not actually in the lab with the bodies, you're not really working the case. You're just observing, you know?"

"Is that legal?" she asked.

"Legal enough," Booth said. "As long as you don't touch the bodies and your name doesn't show up on any of the files, we're golden. Now, if you whisper a few things in my ear here and there and somebody else at the lab follows up on those suggestions… well, as long as they're the ones standing as expert witnesses, does it really matter whose idea it was?" Brennan smiled widely.

"Thanks, Booth," she said. He shrugged it off.

"No problem," he said. He caught her eye, and she saw the compassion beneath the charming smile. She was often amazed by how much he knew of what she wanted and needed, without her having to say a word.

"Are you gonna kiss?" Maggie asked impatiently, piping up for the first time since they sat at the table, causing Sarah Leigh to erupt in laughter.

"Magnolia Anne Rainer, that is not something you ask people!" Sarah Leigh managed to choke out between howls.

"Sorry," she grumbled, turning back to her plate. "I was just wonderin'…"

"Well, you can wonder to yourself just fine," Sarah Leigh chided, turning to Booth and Brennan, who were both staring determinedly away from each other. "Kids, huh?"

"Yeah," Booth said awkwardly, glancing over at Brennan before looking up at the brooding sky overhead, threatening to unleash the afternoon shower at any moment. "Kids."


	12. We Just Know that the Fight Ain't Fair

**A/N:** I didn't wait a week this time, woohoo! I am sensing a trend in my chapter updates... I generally wait until I have something much more important that I should be doing, and use that time to write new chapters. In my own defense I spent all afternoon studying domestication patterns in Central and South America, so I deserved the break. At least that's how I'm rationalizing it to myself. :) Anyway, here's the next chapter, let me know what you think!

* * *

_I don't want to get up baby, let's turn off the phone  
I don't want to go to work today or even put my makeup on  
I've got better things to do than my to-do list anyway  
Hide under the covers and waste away the day..._

_- All I Want to Do, Sugarland_

* * *

The next morning, Booth and Brennan had the live feed set up in Eleanor's bright pink bedroom in the back of the house, screen and receivers laid out on the small white desk up against the window. They both sat on the edge of the little girl's bed, waiting for Cam to connect. Booth sipped coffee from one of Lydia's brightly colored mugs while Brennan pushed hashbrowns around with a fork on the paper plate in her lap. As good as Lydia's cooking was, she wasn't really hungry—she just wanted to hear what they had found out from the remains and the evidence Booth sent over.

Finally the screen came to life, and Brennan smiled when she saw the image of her beloved lab pop up in high resolution. The camera was turned to the left until Cam came into view, and when she was satisfied with the angle, she waved into it.

"Hi guys," she said. "How's Florida?"

"Hot," Booth grumbled.

"Wet," Brennan added. Cam smirked.

"Sounds like Florida," she said. "More importantly, though, how have you been, Dr. Brennan? Booth told me about the family reunion you guys had down there. How's that been?"

"It's been…" Brennan began, not sure how to put the experience so far into words._ Good? Confusing? Frustrating? Insane?_ As if to answer the question for her, the door to Eleanor's room was thrown open, and a frustrated, pajama-clad Sarah Leigh came storming into the room.

"I hope y'all like dog burgers 'cause I swear if that damn animal wakes me up howlin' at the door one more time, I'm'a kill it!" She looked over at the screen and saw Cam's wide-eyed face on the screen, and her mouth fell slightly agape. She looked from Brennan, to Booth, to Cam on the screen, then back to Brennan.

"My bad," she said sheepishly. "I didn't know y'all were workin'."

"It's okay," Brennan said. "Cam, this is my cousin, Sarah Leigh Donnelly. Sarah Leigh, this is one of my colleagues at the Jeffersonian, Dr. Camille Saroyan." Cam waved at Sarah Leigh, who acknowledged her with an incline of the chin.

"You're Dr. Brennan's cousin?" Cam asked. Sarah Leigh grinned and nodded, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress next to Brennan.

"Uh huh, wild ain't it?" she said. "Hey, you gonna finish those or can I have 'em?" she asked, motioning towards Brennan's mostly untouched hashbrowns. She handed Sarah Leigh the plate and she dug in, and it became apparent that she had no plans of leaving. Brennan turned her attention back to the feed, where Cam was trying very hard to hide her smile.

"What did you find during the preliminary examination?" Brennan asked. Cam opened her mouth to answer, then shut it, narrowing her eyes slightly at her.

"Aren't you banned from working this case?" she asked.

"She's not working the case," Booth said. "She's just observing." Cam raised her eyebrows at the agent.

"Observing, huh?" she said. He nodded.

"Yes, observing."

"Me too," Sarah Leigh piped in, swallowing down a mouthful of food. Booth and Brennan both turned and looked at her.

"What?" she said, holding the fork half-way between the plate and her mouth. "This stuff's cool. Besides, they're my cousins too, I got a right to know." Booth shrugged and turned back to Cam.

"See? Observers," he said. "Nothing illegal there."

"I'm sure," Cam said sarcastically. "Anyway, since we didn't have to go through the process of trying to identify the remains—"

"Abby," Sarah Leigh corrected. "And Robbie, and Laura. They got names."

"Right," Cam said slowly before continuing. "So, since that was already cleared up, we went ahead and started looking for physical evidence. The St. John's County coroner was right, gunshot was the cause of death for all three victi—for Abby, Robbie, and Laura. All three bodies endured significant damage from the elements post-mortem…"

"Post-mortem?" Sarah Leigh asked.

"After death," Brennan clarified.

"Right," Cam said. "North Florida is classified as a humid subtropical climate, with the average humidity for this time of year up in the ninety percent range. That moisture in the air, along with the high temperature, really accelerated decomp. Hodgins was able to look at the insect activity, though, and said the bodies had probably been hanging for ten to twelve hours before the sheriff found them."

"All he said was that he came in the morning," Booth said. "I don't know when exactly he found them."

"We got a call around ten," Sarah Leigh said. "You know, _the_ call." Booth nodded.

"Okay, so if they called you around ten, then he probably found them around nine," he said, calculating backwards. "Which means if they'd been hanging for at least ten hours, then they were probably killed around ten PM the night before, to give the killer time to hang them up." Sarah Leigh gave an involuntary shudder next to Brennan.

"Sounds about right," Cam said. "Even at night, the temperature only dips into the upper sixties, lower seventies, and the humidity stays pretty high. That would be more than enough to get this kind of decomp going."

"What about the bullets?" Brennan asked.

"Well, the shells found at the scene were rifle shells, pretty uncommon murder weapons," Cam said. "We matched them to the actual slugs to make sure they were actually the kind of bullets that matched the shells—sometimes when you have crimes in rural areas, you can find shells at the scene that were deposited there by other means, unrelated to the crime. If two yahoos are fooling around and shooting off their hunting rifles, they could easily leave shells behind that might not be picked up for months, or years."

"Two yahoos, sounds about like John and Mike," Sarah Leigh said with a smirk. Brennan nodded her agreement.

"John and Mike?" Cam asked.

"More cousins," Booth clarified.

"How many of them are there?" Cam asked. Brennan ticked them off on her fingers.

"Sarah Leigh, John, Mike, Charlene, Darren, and Molly," she said. "So, seven, plus their children."

"Wow," Cam said. "That's a lot of new branches on the family tree, huh?" Brennan nodded impatiently.

"Yes, it is," she said shortly. "Now, back to the bullets?"

"Oh, right," Cam said. "We matched the shells and the bullets themselves, and they all definitely came out of a rifle barrel. What's more, the bullets all match to each other, so they all came from the same rifle barrel. That includes the single bullet retrieved during Sean Anderson's autopsy."

"So the same weapon was used in all four murders?" Booth asked.

"Definitely," Cam said. "The cartridges themselves were 7 mm Remington Magnums, fairly common big game ammo. I can get you a list of guns that shoot that caliber, but it would be a long list."

"Don't worry about it," Booth said. "What about the material used to hang them?"

"Nothing special about it, just plain square heavy-duty baler twine," Cam said. "You can find it on any farm in America. It's pretty tough stuff, that's why it didn't snap under their weight. Hodgins did want to talk to you about some particulates he found, though." Cam yelled across the cavernous lab for the bug man, who came into view of the camera after a moment's time.

"Hey," he said, settling in front of the camera. "I was… who's that?" he asked, motioning towards Brennan's cousin.

"Sarah Leigh Donnelly," she said, introducing herself. Hodgins smiled.

"Jack Hodgins," he said. "Nice to meet you."

"Pleasure's mine," she said. Booth interrupted their pleasantries.

"Particulates?" he asked.

"Oh, right," Hodgins said, shuffling some papers on the desk in front of him. "Well, I thought I'd go over the twine after it was removed from the victims—"

"Abby," Sarah Leigh insisted frustratedly. "Abby, Robbie, and Laura. What do y'all have against using a person's name?"

"Sarah Leigh, who are you fussin' at?" a voice asked as the bedroom door was pushed open again. Charlene came wandering into the room, balancing Bethany on her hip and blinking furiously. While they thought the passing of the funeral might ease some of Charlene's anxiety, it only seemed to make it worse.

"This man," Sarah Leigh said, pointing to the screen. Charlene took notice of the two people on screen and her lips fell into a small 'o' shape.

"I'm sorry, are y'all…?"

"These are two of my co-workers, Dr. Cam Saroyan and Dr. Jack Hodgins," Brennan introduced. "This is my other cousin, Charlene." Acknowledgments were exchanged, and Sarah Leigh jostled Brennan, who in turn nudged Booth forcefully with her elbow, who grumbled and scooted over several inches on the bed, making room for Charlene on the opposite end.

"Pretty baby," Cam noted. "Is she yours?" Charlene shook her head.

"Mine's sleepin'," she said. "This is Abby's youngest, Bethany."

"Oh," Cam said, her gaze softening on the child, lips turning slightly downward. The one who, by some unknown blessing, was spared her life. "Right. Well, uh, Hodgins, the particulates? You said you went over the twine?"

"Yes," he said, picking up from where he left off. "I removed the twine from the … well, I removed the twine, and went over it for any particulate remains. I found some sand, not uncommon in Florida, and also pollen spores from Pensacola Bahia grass. This wasn't fresh twine, it was recycled—probably used to bale hay originally, then kept in a barn or shed somewhere until the person could find another use for it. Pensacola Bahia was probably the type of grass the hay was made from."

"How common is Pensacola Bahia?" Brennan asked.

"Unfortunately, very," he sighed. "It grows all throughout Florida, as well as lower Georgia and Alabama. It's a pretty common hay grass in the area because it grows so fast."

"You can use the reproductive cycles of insects found on remains to mark time of death, sometimes even down to hours. Can the same be done with pollen spores?" Brennan asked. Hodgins shook his head.

"Palynology can only be used to carbon date fossilized pollen spores," Hodgins said. "Sporopollenin, the organic material pollen spores are made up of, is extremely hardy. It doesn't have any kind of 'half-life' or breakdown phase that I could identify to indicate how long it's been there."

"That sucks," Booth said, chewing the inside of his cheek, gears turning. "So we know the twine was used to bale Pensacola Bahia hay before it… well…" He glanced over at Sarah Leigh and Charlene briefly. "Before it had other uses. That type of grass grows all over Florida, though, so we can't get a more specific location for the supplier of the hay. The twine is generic, so that leads nowhere. There's no time frame on it, so the killer could've had the twine for years before they used it. All of the bullets match each other, but there are about a million guns out there that shoot 7mm Rem Mags."

"Maybe I'm missin' somethin', but that don't sound like much to go on," Charlene said. Booth shook his head.

"It's not," he said irritably.

"But it does prove that the same gun that killed Abby, Robbie, and Laura was used over a year ago to kill Sean Anderson," Brennan said. "That's certainly an important piece of evidence."

"That's about all we've got, though," Booth said. "They didn't pick up any prints at the house, nobody in the area can remember seeing or hearing anything suspicious, and nobody the sheriffs have questioned can seem to think of a single person who might've had it out for them."

"Well, there wasn't anyone," Sarah Leigh said as Charlene handed her Bethany, who had began to fuss. "Everybody loved 'em; they were good people, didn't cause anybody any grief."

"See?" Booth said, as if Sarah Leigh were proving his point. "Nothing."

"Dad is talking to some people," Brennan said after a moment of tense silence. "He said he lost most of his contacts after he went to prison, but the ones he has left, he said he was going to see if they knew anything about the murders."

"You got Max involved?" Cam asked, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. "Okay, Dr. Brennan sitting in is one thing, but getting an ex-con involved in my murder investigation? Seriously, Booth?"

"Max knows the whole story though, Cam," Booth said. "And if he's right, if this whole thing goes deeper than we know, we need his help. He's the only one who might be able to shed light on where the McVicars are now, what they're involved in, if this is their work or not. And besides, nobody besides for us has to know he's involved."

"Oh, _nobody has to know_? Seriously? Those do not sound like legal words to me, and I really doubt they'll sound legit to a judge and jury."

"Hey, I'm the one doing the digging," Booth said. "He's an informant, that's all. They're anonymous, so like I said, nobody has to know. It's a non-issue, as long as he finds out what's up." Cam gave Booth a seething look.

"You'd better be right, big man" she said dangerously. "Because if my head goes down on the block for any of this, I'll have yours on a platter." Suddenly Sarah Leigh let out a low whistle, followed by a series of badly-suppressed giggles.

"Oh shit, she just told you _all_ about yourself," she said. Booth glowered.

"I am a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, why does nobody think I know how to do my job?" he asked exasperatedly. "I know the law, I enforce the law! I've got this." Sarah Leigh, Charlene, and Brennan all gave him similar wary looks.

"Well alright, princess," Sarah Leigh finally said. "No need to get your panties all in a bunch." Now it was Cam's turn to laugh, as she snorted and ducked out of the camera for a second before coming back into view.

"On that note," Cam said, still resisting the urge to smile, "I think we're done for now. If we find out anything else, I'll call you." Booth and Brennan both nodded, and the screen went black.

"Well, that didn't give us much," Booth grumbled. "I hope your dad gets more out of his people."

"He will," Brennan assured. "My father knows a lot of really terrible people, I'm sure someone in his circle of degenerate connections knows something about what happened." Booth couldn't help but smile at the dead-pan way she explained her father's vile connections to the underbelly of society.

"Let's hope," Booth said, lifting himself off of the small pink-sheeted bed and stretching his arms over his head. Brennan and Charlene also got up, but Sarah Leigh handed Bethany off to Brennan, flopping down on the bed and pulling the John Deere comforter up around her ears.

"Excuse me sleepin' beauty, but it's ten thirty," Charlene said. Sarah Leigh yawned, snuggling into the blankets.

"I know," she said. "But Uncle Max isn't the only person in this family who works with a bunch of degenerates. I didn't get home from work until five, and the damn dog woke me up at eight, I'm friggin' tired. Let me sleep." Charlene rolled her eyes.

"Fine," she said, leading Booth and Brennan out of the bedroom and flicking off the overhead light on the way out. In the hallway she added to Booth and Brennan, "At least sleepin' shuts that big mouth of hers."

"I heard that!" Sarah Leigh shouted through the closed door, and they couldn't help but laugh.


	13. It's Hard to Say It, Time to Say It

**A/N:** My semester is officially done! No more pencils, no more books... at least not until the fall. Which means I will have a lot more time in the next few months for fanfic writing. :) I have a lot of different ideas brewing, and I'm excited to get started on them. That includes getting into the action of this fic... which unfortunately did not happen in this chapter like I wanted it to. I'm telling you, that Muse of mine is a real procrastinator. :) She likes to go on these long, winding detours that sometimes make me wonder why you all still keep reading when clearly nothing is happening. I promise things will start 'happening' in the next chapter. Until then, enjoy this one!

* * *

_I thought about you for a long time  
Can't seem to get you off my mind  
I can't understand why we're living life this way  
I found your picture today  
I swear I'll change my ways  
I just called to say I want you to come back home..._

_- Picture, Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock  
_

* * *

Later that afternoon, Brennan stood with Molly in the kitchen, helping her wash the dishes from lunch. All of the children (and the older 'children', John, Mike, and Booth) were outside swimming in the river except for Eleanor, who was lying on the couch with a stomachache, and Maya, who had found Sarah Leigh asleep in Eleanor's bed and had curled up with her for a nap. Molly sudsed and rinsed each plate and cup, handing them to Brennan to dry and stack.

"Baby, how you feelin'?" Molly asked, turning and looking into the living room where the little girl was curled up under a throw, watching television. The little girl groaned in response, and Molly shook her head.

"Poor thing, she's never sick," she lamented. "Eric got one of them twenty-four hour bugs from work a few days ago, though, I think she might finally be gettin' it."

"Momma," they heard weakly from the other room.

"Yeah?"

"Can I have a banana?"

"Hold on," Molly yelled. "Will you take her one? I'm all soapy." Brennan nodded and grabbed a banana out of the bowl on the counter, peeling it as she walked into the living room.

"Here," Brennan said, handing the girl the piece of fruit. She looked quite paler than usual, blanket tucked tightly under her chin, bucket placed strategically next to the couch just in case. Eleanor reached a small hand out from underneath the blanket and took the banana.

"Don't eat that lyin' down," Molly ordered from the kitchen. Eleanor sighed through her nose and propped herself up against the back of the seat, feet just hanging off the end. She was small to be almost six years old—she was not even a head taller than Maya, who had just turned three. Granted, Molly was not particularly tall, but Eric was, and Brandon was quite a large boy to be ten. Apparently the Amazon gene had skipped over the little girl, who stared down pathetically at the banana in her hands.

"Will you sit with me?" she asked in a small, pitiful voice. Brennan opened her mouth to say that she was doing dishes, that she was supposed to be helping, that she did not want sick children climbing all over her. She looked over to Molly for rescue, but the woman just waved her off, as if to say 'I've got it, go ahead.' Brennan sighed, nodding and taking a seat next to Eleanor. She felt one small arm wrap around her waist, the girl's head resting against her chest, moving the banana to and away from her mouth with the other hand like an animatronic arm. Brennan let her arm fall around the child, letting her snuggle in closer, which she seemed to appreciate. She wasn't warm, which was a good thing—it was less likely to be a virus, and more likely to be something she ate that disagreed with her. Brennan thought back to the morning's greasy hashbrowns and fried eggs, and thought she wouldn't be surprised if they had been the culprits.

"Laura used to like this show," Eleanor said out of the blue after she had consumed about half of the banana. On the television, four very peculiar looking creatures danced to techno music, while a man in a bright orange band uniform danced with them. Brennan didn't know what to say—dealing with that kind of loss was difficult for anybody, but for a child who was five years old to lose a cousin only one year her junior? Mortality was difficult for children to grasp, Brennan knew that much; what she didn't know was what to say about it.

"It's Yo Gabba Gabba," Eleanor continued, apparently not needing Brennan to say anything at that moment. She sighed. "I like it too. So does Maya."

"It must be a good show," Brennan said, at a loss for anything constructive to say. Eleanor nodded, taking another bite of banana.

"They're never coming back, are they?" Eleanor asked, in a voice much smaller than it had been. She looked down at the top of the little girl's head, and she looked back up at Brennan, blue eyes already heavy, already knowing.

"No," Brennan finally said, tip of her tongue darting across her lips to wet them before she continued. "They're not. They're not coming back." Eleanor looked back down at the banana in her hand, and Brennan could feel her sigh.

"That's what dead means," the child said. "Dead means you don't come back."

"You're right," Brennan said, hating herself for not knowing what to say, what she needed to hear. She wished Sweets was there to feed her emotionally supportive lines, to tell her what to do, how to act. She wasn't even very good at consoling full-grown adults in their times of grief—how much less prepared she was for a child's grief.

"Mommy told me," she said. "She said they're in Heaven now, and I can see them one day when I go to Heaven too. But I want to see them now." Now she was really in over her head. To talk to a child about death and loss was one thing, but about Heaven and an afterlife she didn't believe in? She remembered Sarah Leigh's words to her in the car the day before—_a little less honest and a little more shut-up_. Brennan decided the words had much more wisdom than she had originally allotted them, and put the advice to use.

"Do you have pictures of them?" she asked delicately. "When I miss my mom, I look at pictures of her, and it makes me feel a little better." Eleanor nodded, letting go of Brennan and sliding off the couch. She went over to the one small bookcase in the living room, on the far wall by the back door, and browsed the top shelf until she found what she was looking for. She struggled to remove a large photo album, and dropped the remaining half of her banana on the floor in the process. It had barely hit the ground before Buckshot appeared out of nowhere, inhaling the fruit, peel and all, in one bite.

"Stupid dog!" Eleanor shouted angrily, a perfect imitation of Sarah Leigh. Buckshot slinked off down the hallway, and Eleanor returned to the couch with the album in tow, setting it in Brennan's lap before crawling back up on the couch and resuming her position curled up into her side. Brennan opened the album, and together she and the little girl flipped through the pages of pictures. She smiled as she browsed the photographs, the first few pages filled with images of her cousins as teenagers—the best of which was undoubtedly a picture of Sarah Leigh, maybe all of twelve or thirteen years of age. Her hair was an immense, frizzy tangle of curls, freckles covering her nose and cheeks, and the flash of the camera shined off of her braces as she smiled. Brennan couldn't help laughing at that one, and Eleanor laughed too.

"Lee-Lee looks funny in that one, doesn't she?" she said. Brennan nodded.

"Funny is definitely a word for it," she replied. Further along in the book they reached baby pictures; a younger Molly holding a fat, squalling baby boy, and on the next page, a chubby, bright-eyed little princess. Eleanor put her finger on the picture, looking up at Brennan.

"Guess who that is?" she said. Brennan smiled and shrugged, having learned from Parker that you're supposed to pretend you don't know the answer to those questions, even if you do.

"I don't know, who?" she asked.

"Me!" Eleanor giggled. They flipped the page over, and there was a picture of Charlene holding a baby with a head full of curly hair in her arms, grin plastered across her face. A handsome black man with brilliant white teeth and a rather flat nose had his arms wrapped around her shoulders, cheek pressed against hers, looking not into the camera as she was but down at their newborn child. Brennan could see the absolute love in his eyes—it was the same expression Booth had on his face when Parker came running up to him when Rebecca dropped him off. Utter adoration.

"That's Uncle Sean," Eleanor said, a little more subdued. "He was in Heaven waitin' for Aunt Abby and Uncle Robbie and Laura." Eleanor's small finger traced the outline of the man's face in the picture, and something about it brought a lump to Brennan's throat.

She swallowed it back and moved on to the next page, which started a series of holiday group shots across the years. Christmases, Easters, Thanksgivings, birthdays, all catalogued in various posed and candid shots. In one, a three-year-old Eleanor blew out the candles on a (not surprisingly) bright pink cake. In another, Mike posed next to a fryer, showing off the deep brown turkey he had just retrieved from the bubbling oil. Every year they sat all the children in a line on the fireplace hearth, presumably on Christmas morning judging by the stockings hanging in back of them, and it was a wonderful marker of how they had grown over the years.

In the first picture, there was only baby Brandon, sleeping in his mother's arms. The next year Danny came into the world, and Mema held both of them, a proud grandmother. With every following picture the children had grown measurably, and new children entered the scene—Maggie, then Eleanor, then Laura, then Maya. In the most recent one there were so many kids that they had spilled out onto the carpet in front of the hearth. Brandon sat tall in the middle, his bright red hair making him stand out in any crowd, beaming as he carefully held a swaddled Bethany in his arms.

Brennan's eyes fell on dark-haired Laura, squeezed between Maggie and Eleanor in footed reindeer pajamas. She had an obvious cross-bite, but it didn't detract from what a pretty little girl she was. Brennan felt her throat constrict again when she realized that never again would the child drape her arms over her cousin's shoulders on Christmas morning, posing for the annual picture. Never again would she open a present, or blow out candles on a birthday cake. The most she would ever have was four. Four candles. It was not nearly enough.

By the time they had flipped through the last few pages, Eleanor announced that she was feeling much better, and wanted to go swim with her cousins. Molly felt her forehead and agreed that she was fine, and the child quickly changed into her swimsuit and darted out the back door. Shortly after she ran out, Booth let himself in through the back door, towel hung over his shoulder. He wore a pair of Mike's trunks, which were slightly small on him, and his cheeks and shoulders were pink from the sun. Brennan thought he looked quite a bit like Parker when he was like that—youthful, sunny, bright-eyed.

"You should really get out there sometime before we go," Booth said, rubbing the towel vigorously over his wet hair. "The water feels great."

"You do realize that necrotizing fasciitis thrives in the St. John's River, don't you?" Brennan asked.

"Necrotizing what?" he asked.

"Flesh-eating bacteria," she clarified. "It can be one of several types of bacterial infections, usually a highly accelerated form of Group A streptococcus, only this one destroys skin, muscle, and fatty tissue." His eyebrows scrunched together in an alarmed way, and Molly laughed from the kitchen.

"Temperance, don't scare him like that!" she said. "Don't worry Seeley, it's really rare for people to get sick with it. You gotta have a big cut that gets water in it, or like, drink straight from the river. Only a few people get it a year, and almost nobody dies."

"But there _is_ flesh-eating bacteria in the river?" he asked. Molly nodded.

"Well, yeah, but there's funky stuff in any river or lake you swim in," she said.

"Not flesh-eating funky stuff!" he said. She snorted.

"Trust me, you got a lot more to worry about from rattlers, cottonmouths, and gators than you do flesh-eating bacteria," she said. He didn't looked convinced.

"I'm going to go take a shower," he grumbled. "If your dad calls me, pick it up, okay?" Brennan nodded and he stomped down the hallway towards the bathroom. After they heard the door shut, Molly smiled and shook her head.

"You shouldn't'a scared him like that," she admonished.

"What? I was only illuminating the dangers of swimming in bacteria-infested river water," she said. Molly rolled her eyes.

"Okay," she said, not one to argue a point. "Just know that he's probably gonna get itchy 'cause his skin ain't used to the water, and you'll be the one up all night with him scratchin' and thinkin' he's gonna die of flesh-eating bacteria." Brennan laughed, knowing Molly was probably right, and regretted having divulged the information to him. Molly dried her hands on her jeans and sat on the couch next to Brennan, finding the remote and flipping channels.

"That show is really strange," Molly said, apparently referring to Yo Gabba Gabba. "I really worry about what it's doin' to her brain. Being home all week, this is really the first time I ever got to sit down and watch it with her."

"It seems like everyone took the week off," Brennan said. Molly nodded.

"Just about," she said. "Eric's the only one who didn't take any time off, 'cept for the day of the funeral."

"Didn't he work with Robbie at the dairy farm?" Brennan asked. Molly nodded.

"He did," she said. "That's why it surprised me that he didn't take time off—they were good friends, always went huntin' together on the weekends, out to get drinks after work, all that. I guess it's just not like him to want to take the week off to spend time with family. You've probably noticed they don't care much for him anyway." Brennan couldn't decide if 'less honest, more shut-up' applied here or not, so she pressed her lips together and let Molly continue talking.

"Anyway, John and Mike took off, and me. Aunt Lydia worked some, but she's outta paid sick days, so I understand. She had to beg to get the day off for the funeral. Charlene don't work right now, and Sarah Leigh does nights so it ended out for her fine. Aunt Esther and Judy are retired, so they spend all their days at home gossipin' about people anyway, nothin' new there. Darren's just… Darren."

"I still haven't met him," Brennan said. Molly sighed.

"I love my brother," she said. "I really do. But he's busier'n a one-legged midget in an ass-kicking contest, and he won't listen to nobody when we tell him to cut back on his hours. He's wearing himself thin, and he misses all kind of important things. Like Abby's funeral—now I know one of his congregation was on her death bed and all, but there's two pastors at his church, and the other doesn't have much family. He could've just as easily let Bill take over at the hospital and come to the funeral with us."

"Why does he push himself so hard?" Brennan asked. Molly leaned back into the couch and shut her eyes.

"He's been that way ever since dad died," she said. "Him and dad were really close. They did everything together—went fishing, worked on the truck, Bible study, all that. Dad's the one who told Darren he'd make a good pastor, he's the reason he did it, you know? After he died, so suddenly, Darren was really tore up about it. After that, he kinda threw himself head-first into his work, I guess so he wouldn't have to think about missing dad."

"I can understand that," Brennan said, for once understanding someone's motivations exactly. Any time in her life she had felt the stabbing pain of abandonment, of loneliness, she threw herself into her studies, or whatever job she was working. She could focus all of her attention on that, and let it push the pain aside, at least temporarily.

"I try to," Molly said. "But he doesn't talk to me about anything anymore. We used to talk about everything—I'm his sister, who else was he gonna bring it to? But after dad died, he was all buttoned up. I could tell it really hurt him, but he wouldn't let on that it bothered him. He just started basically livin' at the church, and now we barely see him."

"I wish I got to see more of Russ," Brennan admitted. "He's out of jail now, and they—Russ, his wife Amy, and his two step-daughters—moved up to Virginia to be closer to me and dad. But he works all the time, and I work all the time, and somehow we just never end up having time to visit." Molly nodded in understanding.

"It sucks," Molly said. "Having a brother you never see, never talk to. Even if they live next door, it's like they're across the country. Everyone feels it, you know—mom especially, since she had just lost dad when Darren started acting so distant. She felt like she lost her son too. What happened to Sean last year made it even worse, and now that Abby and Robbie and Laura are gone… I really don't know if I'll ever get him back."

"I don't know much about how people grieve," Brennan admitted. "But maybe it's something he has to work through alone."

"But how long?" Molly asked, wiping the tears out of the corners of her eyes. "It's been four years since dad died. How long does it take before you're ready to move on with your life? I mean, he was my dad too—I lost him too. You don't see me runnin' away like I don't have a family anymore. He acts like that—like he doesn't have a family who loves him, who wants him around. I just feel like he'd do a lot better if he didn't push us away all the time."

"I don't know what to say," Brennan said after a moment of pause. "After my dad and brother came back into my life, I had a hard time reconnecting with them, but that was different. They'd abandoned me, left me alone for fifteen years. I had a reason to not want them in my life again."

"And you still did anyway," Molly pointed out. "You let them in 'cause you love 'em no matter what happens. You understand family, Temperance. I wish Darren did too." The statement shocked Brennan: _You understand family._ When in her life had she ever been accused of understanding anything to do with relationships, least of all familial ones? Before she could ponder the profoundness of this revelation, she heard her phone sound off from the dining room table. Knowing it could be her father, she hopped up from the couch and checked the caller ID. Sure enough, it read 'Dad' across the screen.

"Hello?" she said, flipping it open.

"Hello, am I speaking to a relative of Max Keenan?" It was not her father's voice on the other end, but that of a young woman, speaking loudly over the cluttered background noise.

"I'm his daughter," she said. "Who is this?"

"I'm Jeannie, I'm a nurse here at Shands Hospital in Jacksonville. You're listed as the first ICE number in your father's phone. What's your name?"

"Temperance," she said impatiently. "Temperance Brennan. Is my father alright? What happened?"

"He's been shot."

* * *

**A/N:** Like I said... the action picks up in the next chapter. :) Also, everyone should have ICE numbers in their cell phones. ICE stands for "In Case of Emergency" and if God forbid something bad happens to you, it allows emergency room nurses to more quickly get in contact with your loved ones. Most people don't list their husbands as "Husband" or their daughters as "Daughter" in their phone books (unless you are a very strange cookie), but if you list someone as "ICE" it makes them immediately identifiable as your emergency contact. Now that I am done with my safety lesson for the day, review and let me know what you think!


	14. And There is So Much We Don't Know

**A/N:** Now I remember why I don't usually write cliffhangers - I can't stop thinking about them and feel compelled to update right away! Not that anyone else is complaining about that. :) There's another little wrench thrown into things at the end (which may or may not be what you think), which probably means I will be updating again before the end of the week... oh the things I do to myself. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_Why does it have to go from to good to gone?  
Before the lights turn on,  
Yeah, and you're left alone  
Oh, all alone..._

_- Here Comes Goodbye, Rascal Flatts_

* * *

Brennan felt the blood drain from her face, and the phone in her hand suddenly felt extremely heavy, like a cinder block held up to her ear.

"Wh-what?" she asked, convincing herself that she hadn't heard the nurse properly.

"Shot," Jeannie repeated. "He arrived by ambulance about ten minutes ago from Hastings, just got wheeled into the OR. Your area code isn't local, I'm not sure where you're from but…"

"We're here," she said, summoning some sort of voice. "We're… visiting family. Is he going to be alright?"

"Don't know," the nurse said plainly. "There was a lot of blood, but he was puttin' up a fight which is usually a good sign. Won't know more until the doctors get in there and see where the bullets ended up." Brennan thanked the nurse and flipped the phone shut, letting it fall from her hand and hit the table without a second thought.

"Temperance?" Molly called from the living room, having heard the thud. "You okay?"

"My… my dad," Brennan said, still trying to wrap her head around the news she had jus been given. "Someone shot him." Molly's eyes went wide.

"No! Is he alright?" she asked. Brennan squeezed her eyes shut, trying to organize the myriad thoughts pulsing through her mind.

"Booth!" she yelled suddenly, heading down the hall and banging on the bathroom door. She pounded it incessantly until it opened under her hand. Booth's head poked out of the crack, thick lather covering his hair, and he looked none too amused by the interruption.

"Bones, I'm trying to—"

"My dad got shot," she blurted. His face paled.

"What?" he asked stupidly, as she had upon receiving the news.

"Shot, he was shot," she repeated. "With a gun. We need to get to the hospital."

"Okay, hold on," he said, shutting the door and presumably rinsing the suds out of his hair. She knew his GPS could easily get them to the hospital, but it would be faster if there was somebody in the car who knew the quickest way. She tiptoed into Eleanor's bedroom, where Sarah Leigh and Maya were both fast asleep on the bed. Not wanting to wake Maya and induce another fit of night terrors, she thumped Sarah Leigh repeatedly on the shoulder until the woman stirred.

"Get up," Brennan hissed. Sarah Leigh's eyes popped open, and when she saw Brennan leaning over her, she scowled and shut her eyes again. Not having time to play this game, Brennan pinched the skin of Sarah Leigh's upper arm between her thumb and index finger, and the woman shot up.

"What?" she mouthed, taking note of the sleeping child, who stirred but did not wake. Brennan tilted her head towards the door and Sarah Leigh grudgingly got out of bed and followed her into the hallway.

"That hurt," Sarah Leigh said.

"My dad's in the hospital," Brennan said. Sarah Leigh's brows shot up, mouth dropping open.

"Is he okay?" she asked. Brennan briefly wondered to herself why everyone always asked if someone who had been recently hospitalized was 'okay'. Obviously they weren't okay if they were in the hospital.

"They don't know, he was shot, they just took…" Brennan took a deep breath, suddenly feeling the weight of what she had just discovered crushing her chest. "Just took him into the operating room. He lost a lot of blood."

"Shands Jacksonville, right?" Sarah Leigh asked as she opened the door to Charlene's room, pulling open one of the dresser drawers and rummaging through it for clothes. It was apparently also where she kept her belongings.

"Yes, how'd you know?"

"It's the level one trauma center," she replied, shedding her pajamas without modesty and changing into shorts and a tank top. "You guys know how to get there?"

"No, that's why I woke you," Brennan said. Sarah Leigh nodded, her eyes flicking back and forth between Brennan's. She squeezed her shoulder with her hand.

"He'll be fine," she said. Brennan took a bracing breath and nodded. He'd be fine. He had to be. She heard the door down the hall open and Booth came stomping out, still half wet, t-shirt sticking to him.

"Let's go," he said. "She coming with us?" They both nodded and headed towards the door.

"We'll catch up with you guys," Molly called out as they were leaving. Brennan paused in the doorway.

"You don't have to—"

"My uncle's in the hospital, I'm gonna be there for him," Molly said. "And you. I'll just get the kids and everyone ready and we'll be there. Shands?" Brennan nodded and shut the door behind her, loading up into the SUV just as Booth shifted it out of park.

Brennan clung to the oh-shit bar as Booth sped down the uneven dirt road, barely stopping before he peeled out onto the main highway. He flipped the siren on as the speedometer hit sixty, seventy, eighty plus miles per hour. What normally would have been an hour-long drive was completed in just over half an hour, Booth white-knuckle grasping the wheel while Brennan stared emptily at the blurred green scenery. Sarah Leigh was unnaturally silent in the back seat, seeming to count the freckles on her arms.

They stormed the E.R., which was uniquely quiet for a summer afternoon, and were redirected to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit several floors up. Booth tapped his foot impatiently as their elevator climbed floors slowly—he was considerably more outwardly agitated than Brennan was, which did not really surprise her. He very much liked her father now that they had made amends, and any time someone he loved was hurt, he started acting like a man possessed. This was a unique moment for Brennan because generally it was she who he was acting this way over; this time she got to see his pseudo-familial loyalty play out over someone else. Because that was what it was—familial—whether Max was his blood or not. It was obvious from his impatient through-the-nose sighs and clenched jaw that his worry was deep and genuine, and despite her present overwhelming fear, Brennan was touched by it.

"Finally," he growled as the elevator doors opened, allowing them into the bright white sterility of the SICU. They reached locked swinging doors with a phone on the wall, which Brennan picked up and hesitantly held to her ear.

"Surgical ICU," the woman on the other end of the line said with an air of expectancy.

"Hi, my father was just taken into surgery about an hour ago, Max Keenan?"

"Hold on." A loud buzzer sounded and the doors opened, letting the three of them enter the ward. They approached the nurse's station, where a short black woman in rubber duck-printed scrubs was scanning a chart on the wall behind her.

"Max Keenan's gonna be in room 416 after surgery," she said, turning back towards them. "Y'all can wait there if you want, but it'll probably be a while. The surgery was exploratory, no tellin' what they're in for. If y'all gonna wait there, I'll send a scrub nurse to update you when she gets a chance, okay?" They nodded in unison and the woman smiled kindly, returning to whatever paperwork she had been filling out previously. They found the room down the hall to the right, and Sarah Leigh paused in the doorway.

"I uh… I really don't like hospitals," she admitted. "If y'all don't mind, I'm gonna go hang out in the cafeteria for a while. I got my phone, call me if anything happens, okay?" Booth and Brennan nodded and Sarah Leigh disappeared down the hall, flip-flops echoing loudly as they slapped the linoleum.

Brennan sank into one of the chairs on the fringe of the room, leaning back into it and letting her head thump against the wall behind her. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and let out a loaded sigh. She felt Booth take a seat in the chair next to hers.

"You okay?" he asked, his voice the only sound in the strangely quiet room. These rooms were supposed to be filled with the beeps, chirps, and whistles of monitors, the wheeze of a ventilator, the sound of something. It wasn't meant to be this quiet. In a room like this, quiet meant awful things.

"Yeah," she lied, sitting up in the seat and opening her eyes. "I'm fine. I just want the scrub nurse to come update us. I don't like not knowing what's going on."

"I know," Booth said, knowing full well she was not okay but not going to press the issue at that moment. "They will soon. As soon as they can spare someone."

"Right," Brennan sighed. "Soon."

Ten minutes passed, then twenty, then thirty. Brennan watched the analog clock on the opposite wall, hanging between two narrow windows, as it ticked off the minutes. Booth couldn't sit still for more than five or six minutes at a time—he would stand up, stretch, pace back and forth across the small room, then sit again. He turned the television on, flipped channels, then arbitrarily turned it off again, tossing the remote on the empty bed. Brennan picked it up and turned the TV back on—she felt more comfortable with the sound of other people's voices filling the room, even if they were only actors on a TV show. The sound of people, of live, happy people, did something to ease the consuming anxiety burning in her stomach, a bitter acrid taste lingering in the back of her throat. Forty-five minutes into their wait Brennan received a text message from Sarah Leigh, asking if they had heard anything. Just as she was beginning to reply, there was a knock at the door, and a portly nurse in light blue scrubs and a surgical cap stepped into the room. Brennan jumped up from her chair as if it were alight.

"Max Keenan's daughter?" she asked. Brennan nodded.

"How is he?" Booth asked, standing close enough to Brennan that she could feel his arm brush up against hers.

"He's hangin' in there," the nurse said with a kind, but tired, smile. "He lost a lotta blood, it's a pretty long drive from here to Hastings. There were two through-and-through wounds, and two that were entry-only. The doctors have found one of the bullets so far, still diggin' around for the other. Whoever shot him managed to miss all his vital organs—heart, lungs, stomach, everything's fine. They had to remove his spleen, it got hit, but you don't really need that, and they're workin' on tryin' to save his left kidney. That aside, though, they put a buncha units of blood in him so he's alright. Can't tell ya how much longer it'll be—maybe two hours, maybe three. They gotta find the other bullet and decide what they're doin' with that kidney, then they'll close him up. Any questions?"

"So he'll be okay?" Booth said. The nurse hesitated, then nodded.

"I don't ever like to say that to patients' families," she said. "Because you never really know, so you never make promises 'til they're out the door. But right now, yeah, it looks like he'll pull through fine." He felt Brennan waver next to him and put his arm around her side, steadying her. She took a deep breath and gave a shaky laugh.

"Great," she said, pinching the corners of her eyes with her thumb and index fingers. "Great, thank you. Thank you very much." The nurse patted her shoulder.

"Alright now, I'm gonna go back in there, if anything else happens I'll let y'all know. I'm Teri, by the way."

"Thanks, Teri," Booth said, and the woman nodded and left. Brennan felt an incredible wave of emotion wash over her, finally allowing the immense weight of the afternoon hit her full force, and she began to cry. Booth pulled her into his chest, and she hugged him around the middle, pressing her face into his shirt.

"It's okay," he said, rubbing her back. "It's okay. He's gonna be fine. Shhh… he's okay. You're okay." She nodded, wiping the wet tracks from her cheeks and shaking her head, smiling.

"I don't know why I'm crying," she said.

"I don't know why you weren't crying before," he said. "It's okay to cry, Bones. It's relief. Lots of people cry when they're relieved." She nodded and sniffed loudly, leaning back into him and resting her cheek on his shoulder.

"I was so scared," she admitted quietly, no longer upset by the silence in the room. "I thought… God," she paused, wiping her eyes again. "I thought he was going to die." Booth continued to run his fingers lazily up and down her spine—it was relaxing for the both of them.

"Me too," Booth said. "But he's not, he's going to be fine. And when he comes to, he can tell us who shot him." Brennan stiffened—she hadn't even thought about the person who'd done this to her father. She had been so consumed by the idea of losing him, it hadn't even crossed her mind.

"He was going to talk to one of his contacts," she said, talking into his shoulder still. "You don't think it was them, do you?"

"I don't know," Booth said. "I mean, that seems likely, but it's hard to say. The contact could've done it, or could've double-crossed him and tipped off whoever was responsible for what happened to the Armstrongs, or, you know, it could be totally unrelated. Max will be able to tell us when he wakes up, though." Brennan opened her mouth to say something, but stopped when she heard the fast _slap-slap-slap_ of flip-flops running down the hall. Sarah Leigh threw the door open, looking winded.

"I texted you, you never… oh." She paused at the sight of Brennan wrapped up in Booth's arms, eyes widening. "Oh God, he didn't—"

"No, no," Brennan said quickly, disengaging herself from Booth's embrace. "He's not dead, no. He's going to be okay. The scrub nurse just came in and told us." Sarah Leigh sighed loudly with relief, letting herself collapse into the nearby chair that Brennan had occupied previously. She held a Styrofoam box in her hands, that had presumably come from the cafeteria.

"Thank God," she said. "When you didn't answer me back, you scared me half to death."

"I'm sorry, I was about to respond when the nurse came in," Brennan said. Sarah Leigh waved her off.

"It's fine, he's okay, it's all good," she said, popping open the top of the white box. Inside was a half-eaten hot ham and cheese sandwich and a large quantity of french fries. She picked up the sandwich and took a large bite, filling her cheeks. She became aware of the fact that Booth and Brennan were both staring at her, and quirked a brow at them.

"Whah?" she asked before swallowing down the mouthful of food. "All that worryin' made me hungry." Booth let out a bark-like laugh.

"Sarah Leigh, _everything_ makes you hungry," he said. She scowled at him.

"Well fine then," she said, trying to hide her smile. "No french fries for you. Temperance, would _you_ like some french fries?" Brennan smiled but declined—her stomach had twisted and turned over so many times in the past few hours, the last thing it needed was a bunch of greasy cafeteria food. She took a seat in the other chair, and Booth perched on the edge of the bed, and together the three of them waited. Booth turned on the television and they watched the five o'clock news, wondering if Max's shooting would be part of the broadcast. It never came up, though there was an interesting piece about a gator entering someone's home through a doggie door.

About half an hour later they heard what sounded like a herd of elephants coming down the hallway, and weren't surprised when the rest of the family came bursting through the door. Lydia lead the way, followed in quick step by her sisters Judy and Esther, and their mob of adult children, sans Eric and the ever-elusive Darren.

"Is he alright?"

"What happened?"

"Who did it?"

"Where is he?"

The questions came flooding in, and Booth had to hold his hands up to silence the group.

"Max is going to be fine," he said. "He was shot and lost a lot of blood, but the scrub nurse said he was going to be okay. We don't know who did it. Hopefully he'll be able to tell us when he wakes up." A collective sigh echoed throughout the room.

"Thank God," Lydia said. "I just got back to likin' him, I was gonna be pissed if he up and died on me." They laughed, and the group stood around awkwardly in the crowded hospital room.

"Where are all the kids?" Brennan asked.

"Left 'em with Mema," Charlene said. "She sends her love, by the way."

"Where's Eric?" Sarah Leigh asked with obvious disdain. Molly gave her a half-admonishing look.

"Drove out to Palatka to pick up a couch," she said. "Came home real quick to get the big truck, left the little one for me. He was already gone by the time I ran home from Aunt Lydia's to get the truck to drive up here. I tried to get a hold of him but he didn't pick up. Probably out in BFE. I'll try callin' him again in a little bit." Brennan nodded, but saw Booth make a subtle expression that flashed across his face only for a moment before he started smiling again.

"New couch, huh? He must be making that _moo_-lah," he cracked. Sarah Leigh groaned loudly.

"Okay I'm sorry, but that was terrible," she said. He laughed, as did most of the room.

"Come on, it was funny!" he defended. She shook her head as she chomped on the last of her fries. They joked and laughed with each other, the room now buzzing with noise and life, and the following hour passed with relative speed. Finally there was a knock on the room door, and it swung open slowly. A tall, thin man in scrubs peered into the room, and looked taken aback by the sheer number of people there.

"Is someone in here Max Keenan's daughter?" he asked hesitantly. Brennan stepped forward from the group.

"That's me," she said.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Ralph Sedarsky, I'm one of the trauma surgeons who worked on your father."

"How is he?" she asked. Dr. Sedarsky cleared his throat, looking around the room at the multiple pairs of eyes staring at him.

"The surgery went well," he said. "We were able to find and remove both bullets. We had to remove his spleen, and though he suffered pretty extensive damage to his left kidney, we were able to salvage it. He lost a lot of blood in the field, but we put a couple of units in him and he's doing fine now. Now if we can get a little… uhm… room… we can get him set up in his room here, and you can visit with him. He's pretty heavily drugged for the pain, but he's starting to come out of anesthesia so he's conscious."

"Okay, thank you. We'll give you some room," Brennan said. The gaggle of adults filed out of the room, looking like a gang of redneck thugs as they stood outside Max's room, arms crossed, waiting for him to come down the hall. When they saw his bed round the corner out of the O.R., Mike and John started clapping and hooting. Everyone joined in, ignoring the nurses demands for respect for the other patients in the SICU. It wasn't until the woman in the duck scrubs loudly threatened to kick them all out if they didn't stop, that they quieted down. As they pushed him through the door of his room Max lifted a hand weakly and smiled.

The nurses got him settled into his room, hooking him up to various monitors and shooting another dose of morphine into his veins before the family was allowed into his room, two at a time, to visit.

"He really needs his rest," one of the nurses said sternly. "You should probably just wait and come back tomorrow morning."

"We'll just be a minute," Booth said. "It's important." She rolled her eyes and allowed Booth and Brennan to enter, but barred anyone else from slipping in. Brennan dragged one of the chairs to the side of her father's bed, sitting in it and taking his hand in hers.

"Dad, how are you feeling?" she asked. He tilted his head.

"Eh, I've been better," he said hoarsely, throat still raw from the intubation tube.

"Max, do you know who shot you?" Booth asked. Max swallowed and shook his head.

"I can't remember," he said. "I can't remember the guy. I just remember the truck."

"What about it?" Brennan asked.

"Green," Max said. "Left front light busted out. The guy pulls out of a bar parking lot after I drive past it, about half-way between here and Green Cove Springs, where I was meeting the guy. Passes in front of me, then slams his brakes. I hit him from behind, we both pull over. I get out, walk up to his truck. That's it. Then it's some kid asking if I know what day it is, then nothing. Now this. That's all I got." Booth nodded, scowling.

"It sounds like that guy you went to meet today set you up," he said. "That guy in the truck knew you'd be driving by there, he was waiting for you. What about the guy, Max? What happened?"

"Booth, can't it wait?" Brennan asked. "He just got out of surgery, he's got no voice. Let him rest." Booth set his jaw, but nodded. Max needed to rest; he could ask him about the meeting tomorrow.

"Okay," he said. "I'll come back in the morning, we'll chat. Okay?" He gently patted Max on the arm, and the old man smiled weakly.

"Yeah, thanks," he croaked. "Maybe I'll remember more then." Booth nodded, heading towards the exit.

"You comin', Bones?" he asked. She looked at her father, then back to Booth, shaking her head.

"No," she said. "I think I'm going to spend the night here."

"You sure?" he asked. She nodded.

"Yes," she said. "I'll be fine, Booth. Go on." Booth nodded, leaving father and daughter alone.

He went with her family down into the parking lot, where they dispersed to their various vehicles. One by one they roared to life, lights illuminating the asphalt stretch. He was digging in his pocket for his keys, when one set of lights in particular caught his eye. He inhaled sharply.

"Hey," he called out, running up to the truck. The window rolled down, and Molly leaned out.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Whose truck is this?" Booth asked.

"Eric's," she said. "Front light's busted out, I know. I keep tellin' him to fix…" Before she could finish her sentence, Booth had taken off, grabbing Sarah Leigh by the arm just before she could climb into Mike's Bronco.

"That bar you work at, it's about half-way between Green Cove and where you live, isn't it?" he hissed into her ear. She gave him a puzzled look and nodded.

"Yeah, why?" she asked.

"Can you take me there now?" he asked. She nodded again.

"Then you're coming with me," he said. She shrugged at Mike and followed Booth to his SUV, nearly jogging to keep up. She hopped in the front passenger's seat, barely able to buckle her seatbelt before Booth stomped the gas, sending them zooming through the parking lot.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Eric's in on it," he said through gritted teeth, flipping his siren on for the second time that day. "He's involved. He's the one who shot Max."

"How do you figure?" she asked. "I mean I don't like Eric none either, but…"

"Max described the truck Molly was driving perfectly," Booth said. "Molly said Eric came home early and switched trucks, to go pick up a couch. When she ran home to get in her truck to drive up to the hospital, he had already switched out. The timeline fits. He waits for Max, pulls a stunt on the road to make him pull over, and shoots him. That gives him just enough time to get home and switch vehicles before word gets out about what happened."

"Holy shit," Sarah Leigh said, eyes wide with shock.

"Yeah," Booth said, doubling the speed limit as they blasted through the suburbs surrounding the city, grasping the steering wheel tightly. Sarah Leigh saw something dark in Booth—felt it, really—and it unnerved her.

"So what are we goin' to the bar for?" she asked, almost hesitantly.

"I'm going to make sure I can place him leaving there right before Max was shot," he said. "And then I'm gonna do everything in my power to find that sneaky sonofabitch and make him hurt."


	15. Roof Slips Beneath My Feet

**A/N:** I told you I'd get another update in before the end of the week! Vacation is a wonderful thing. :) I wanted to get this one finished before tonight, because I know that after Bones, Grey's Anatomy, and the Michael J. Fox special on ABC, I will be an emotional wreck by 11 PM and would be in absolutely no state of mind to write this chapter. More action, more reveals, hopefully some clues you will be able to pick up on and make educated guesses about the direction this is going on. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_I think he recognized  
That look in my eyes  
Standing with him there I felt ashamed  
I said, You know, I haven't always felt this way_

_I've had my moments, days in the sun  
Moments I was second to none  
Moments when I knew I did  
What I thought I couldn't do..._

_- Moments, Emerson Drive_

* * *

Booth turned off the siren as they drew nearer to the bar where Sarah Leigh worked, allowing them to pull into the dark parking lot quietly. He had already put out a call on the radio to keep watch for a red 2000 Ford F-150, so he felt confident that he had eyes everywhere looking for Eric. The poorly lit stretch of gravel was littered with mostly trucks, clustered together near the front of the building. The bar itself was just as Lydia had described it—a hole in the wall—with the front door propped open with a broken barstool to catch the evening breeze. There were no windows, and it in fact looked more like a shed than a bar, metal roof sagging with age, paint peeling off the walls. The sign on the edge of the road read, "The Dock."

"This is it," Sarah Leigh said as Booth parked near the back of the lot, which was surrounded by heavy woods. Booth felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle as they crossed the lot towards the bar—that feeling that there were eyes on the back of his neck, watching him carefully. He glanced at Sarah Leigh out of the corner of his eye; she showed no sign of experiencing the same feeling, so he shook it off.

The inside of the bar was rank with stale alcohol, sweat, smoke, and urine. The main area was a large, rectangular room with a counter running across one wall, a collection of round tables and folding chairs, and a pool table. Two men with cigarettes in their hands played a lazy, drunken game on the table, scratching every other shot. Another handful of men filled the barstools along the counter, laughing and shouting and wobbling dangerously. An old Pac-Man arcade game blinked in the far corner, the only bright thing in the room. From the distance he could see the High Score board blinking across the screen—someone named "SLD" held the top five spots, and the seventh, and the ninth.

"Hey pretty girl," one of the men at the counter slurred when he turned and saw them enter the bar, lifting a hand in greeting. "I's wonderin' where you was! C'mere and give poppa some sugah, huh? Little touchy-feely or summit?"

"Hey, show some respect," Booth growled.

"Seeley, it's fine," Sarah Leigh said, putting a hand on his arm. Her hands weren't soft and refined like Brennan's—they had calluses on the palms, and the nails were chewed down to the quick.

"It is not," he argued.

"Well, either way, I'm used to it," she said bitterly. "They're harmless, just drunk. Hey Larry, where's Saul?" she hollered across the bar, to a youngish man, probably in his late twenties, cleaning glasses behind the counter. He jerked his head towards a door that lead down a narrow hallway. She nodded and Booth followed as she walked around to where the counter lifted up, allowing them to squeeze in behind it.

"Whoa, who's he?" Larry asked, pushing his floppy brown hair out of his face and grinning at her as he stepped into her way, leaning on the counter and inclining his chin upwards at Booth.

"Seeley Booth, Lawrence Massey, AKA Larry," she introduced impatiently.

"New _friend_?" Larry asked playfully.

"New cousin," Sarah Leigh corrected, putting a hand on the young man's chest and pushing him out of her way. "Now get, I need'ta talk to Saul."

"He's drunk," Larry warned, pushing the glasses into semi-neat rows on the back shelf. "If you're looking for more hours, now would be the time to ask." Sarah Leigh let out a scratchy laugh, deep and playful, and the light in her eyes surprised Booth. His lips curled upward in a smile.

"Not quite, but thanks," Sarah Leigh said to Larry, heading down the dim hallway. There were two doors at the end, one directly in front of them and one to the side. She rapped her knuckles on the side door, yelling into the wooden door.

"Saul! You in there?" She paused and when they heard nothing in response, she made a fist and began pounding. "Saul, open up you little drunk sonofabitch, I need to talk to you!" There was a guttural groan from within, and finally the door swung open dramatically. An extremely short man with a large forehead covered in thick, greasy salt-and-pepper hair filled the bottom half of the doorway, looking up at Sarah Leigh with narrow, bloodshot eyes. He bared his yellow teeth at her in a lopsided grin, clapping his small hands together.

"Whaddaya want, you titanic Amazonian bitch?" Saul asked, and Booth was surprised to find the man's accent very Long Island in nature, not the drawling southern he had been immersed in since their arrival. He looked over to the right, seeming to notice Booth. He staggered back dramatically, holding a hand over his chest.

"Holy Mutha o' God, it's the Jolly Green Giant!" he proclaimed, laughing extraordinarily loudly for such a small person and falling into the doorway. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm just kiddin' around. Name's Saul, Saul Goldman, nice to meet ya," he said, reaching up high to offer Booth his hand. Booth still had to bend slightly to reach it.

"Booth," he said, giving Sarah Leigh a quick sidelong look. "Seeley Booth."

"So what, you bringin' your boyfriends around to meet the family, huh?" Saul asked Sarah Leigh, breaking out in his booming laughter immediately after his statement.

"He's my cousin," Sarah Leigh said again, and Booth wondered when he had been awarded the honorary moniker.

"Hey, that don't stop some people! Ha!" Saul said, at this point nearly rolling on the floor in amusement over his own jokes. "No, really, come into my office, siddown."

"No time," Sarah Leigh said, leaning in the doorway and looking down at the man. "Saul, you been here all day, right?"

"Since ten this mornin'," the man said, using a stool to step up into the rolling chair in front of his desk.

"You seen my cousin Eric around here?" she asked. Saul made a face contorted with thought, then nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, I seen 'im," he said. "Came in around noon, I guess. Thought he was supposed to be working, but he said he got the day off. Looked like he was waiting for someone. That someone come in, ah, ten or fifteen minutes later. Some guy, I didn't know him. They sit down, have a drink, and after a few minutes the other guy leaves. Eric asks me for another, and another, and another… guy was really down about something, I dunno. Drank like that 'til three, maybe quarter after. I thought he was too drunk to drive but hey, look at me, look at him, you really think I was gonna argue with him about it? He left, that's the last I saw of him. Why?"

"Can you tell me what the other guy looked like?" Booth asked. Saul shrugged.

"Eh, kinda your average Joe, you know?" he said. "Tall, but hell everyone looks tall to me. Ha!" The man slapped his knee, then continued. "Anyway, kinda medium build, maybe a little heavy. Short hair, middle aged. You know, average. Nothin' special about him."

"Did you catch his name?" he asked.

"Hold on," Saul said, digging through the detritus overflowing from his desk onto the floor. "He didn't say, but this fell outta his pocket after he paid." Saul finally found what he was looking for—a billfold clasped around several five and one dollar bills, with a bull's skull etched into an elliptical silver plate on one side, and the initials "C.M." on the loop of metal that pinned the bills together on the other. "I was gonna hold it for the guy, see if he came looking for it. What's goin' on? Something happen to Eric?"

"You could say that," Booth said, withdrawing his badge from his pocket and flipping it open for the man to see. "Can I have this?" Saul's eyes widened, and he tossed the billfold to Booth without a second thought.

"Sure, sure, no problem," he said. "Don't ever let 'em say Saul Goldman didn't do exactly what the cops asked him to."

"Thanks," Booth said, pocketing the evidence. "And if you see the guy come back, don't let him leave, call the police."

"You got it," Saul said, nodding vigorously. "I mean I can't exactly wrestle the guy down, but I'll, you know, kick him in the shins 'til he cries for his ma! Ha!"

"Alright, let's go," Booth muttered under his breath as the little man's raucous laughter filled the room. He and Sarah Leigh left the bar quickly, not wanting to waste any more time in the pursuit of Eric. When they got into the SUV, however, Sarah Leigh saw that Booth was frowning in a way that suggested something wasn't right.

"What?" she asked, snapping him out of thought. He looked up as he cranked the engine.

"What what?" he asked.

"You just had that look on your face like somethin' didn't add up. What was it?" He pressed his lips together as they pulled out of the parking lot onto the main road, heading south towards Palatka.

"Your boss, Saul," he said. "Is he an empathetic guy? Does he pick up on other people's feelings a lot?" Sarah Leigh shrugged.

"Saul's usually too drunk to care about anyone else's feelings but his own," she said. "But, you know, he's a good guy. I didn't even have to ask him for the time off after what happened to Abby, he just told me, take off however much you need. How come?"

"The way he described Eric," Booth said. "He said he seemed upset, like he was trying to drink away his problems. That sounds a hell of a lot like guilt to me. It sounds almost like he was guilty about what he was about to do to Max. It doesn't make sense. In cases of premeditated murder, there's no guilt about it. If there was, they wouldn't do it." Sarah Leigh ruminated on Booth's words as they sped through the night. Suddenly she sat up in the passenger's seat, eyes fixated on a vehicle on the side of the road up ahead of them.

"That's Molly's truck," she said, pointing to it. Booth slowed down and pulled up behind it, parking on the side of the road and putting his flashers on. There were no streetlights along this road, so the only source of light came from the highbeams of his SUV, which barely illuminated the dense forest alongside the road. Sarah Leigh opened her door, but Booth wrapped his hand around her upper arm, pulling her back into the vehicle.

"You stay," he said firmly. She pulled against him, but he tightened his grip. "I'm serious, Sarah Leigh—stay here. You don't know if he's in there or not, if he's got the gun… you're not getting shot on my watch, okay? Just stay put." She narrowed her eyes at him but gave up, shutting the door and leaning back in her seat with her arms crossed. Satisfied that she would do as she was told, Booth stepped out of the SUV, hand on the gun holstered on his hip. He rarely went anywhere without it, and now he was glad for it.

"Eric?" he called out, holding the gun in front of him protectively as he walked around the side of the truck. There was no response. He looked into the rear-view mirror to see if there was anybody in the reflection—there wasn't. A look through the open window made it clear that the truck had been abandoned. Booth cussed under his breath. If Eric had disappeared into the woods at night, finding him would be next to impossible. He thought so, anyway, until he heard a loud gunshot echo through the trees.

"Eric?" he called out again, this time at the top of his voice. He saw a flashlight resting just inside the door of Eric's truck, and reached in through the open window to grab it.

Clicking the flashlight on, he holstered his weapon and held the beam at shoulder level as he entered the woods. It illuminated his path through the scratchy, humid underbrush as he moved in the direction of the sound of the shots. Another round was fired, and he followed it for a few minutes, hoping his sense of direction was still as keen as it had been as a Ranger. After several minutes of silence, though, he began to worry that he was going to lose the trail, until another much louder blast rang through the night. He adjusted his trajectory slightly, and it was then that he heard the sound of quick footsteps approaching him from behind. He swung around, quickly yanking his gun from his hip and aiming it at his perceived attacker.

"Jesus, watch where you're pointin' that thing!" she hissed, the beam from the flashlight revealing her startled face. He groaned.

"Sarah Leigh, I told you to stay in the car!"

"I didn't want to," she said plainly.

"I don't care if you 'want to' or not," he said, feeling like he was arguing with Parker. "It's a matter of safety, you're not safe out here."

"Neither are you," she pointed out. "It ain't safe to go out in the woods alone; you're always s'posed to take a buddy with you." Even in the dim light, he could clearly see that she was going to stand her ground on this, and he sighed.

"Fine," he said. "But two rules—gun goes first, and if anything happens to me, you run. Got it?" She nodded, and he handed her the flashlight so that he could keep a better hold on the gun.

"Alright then," he said. "The sound was coming from that way." They continued their trek through the woods, the intermittent gunshots growing louder as time passed. His arms and face were covered in scratches and he was sticky with sweat when they finally came to a place where the trees thinned out, a natural clearing where a tree had fallen some time ago. Eric paced back and forth across the clearing, swinging a revolver carelessly in his hand. He held it over his head and squeezed the trigger, and Booth instinctively stepped in front of Sarah Leigh as the shot sounded.

"Stay here," he whispered grittily in her ear, but she didn't need telling. Booth walked along the edge of the trees, until he was about twenty feet away from Sarah Leigh, then called out Eric's name. That way if he chose to shoot towards the voice, she wouldn't be in the line of fire.

"Eric," Booth called out. The man didn't seem to notice him, shaking his head and rubbing his face with his hands, gun barrel dangerously close to his head. It was then that Booth realized Eric was crying. Booth sucked in air through his teeth—it would take only one false move for Eric to blow his own brains out in that moment, drunk and emotional.

"Hey, Eric," Booth called out again, stepping into the clearing. In this thinner patch of woods the moon was visible through the canopy, casting the scene into cool shades of grey and blue. "It's me, man. Put the gun down."

"Hell no, man," Eric said, not looking up but apparently having heard him. "No way. No, no, no." Eric finally looked up at Booth, face swollen, mouth slack. He held the gun loosely in his hand at his side.

"Come on," Booth said. "Just put the gun down, and we can talk about it."

"Why don't you just shoot me already?" Eric asked, almost begged. "Just kill me. Just…" he turned around and started pacing again, and seemingly on a whim sent a shot up into the trees, towards the moon.

"Put the gun down, Eric" Booth insisted, loudly and clearly. "You don't want to hurt anybody, do you?" Eric let out a derisive laugh.

"Hurt anybody? I killed a man!" he yelled. From behind, Booth saw his shoulders sag, then shake. "I don't deserve to live." He brought the gun up towards his head, and as Booth was toying with the idea of a non-fatal shot to stop him from killing himself, he heard another voice.

"Don't you dare!" It was Sarah Leigh, who had joined them in the clearing.

"I told you to stay there!" Booth yelled angrily. She shook her head, taking a few hesitant steps towards Eric.

"You hate me," Eric said, looking up at her, gun resting lazily under his chin. "You want me to die."

"I do hate you, you're right," Sarah Leigh said, and Booth grimaced. "But I don't want you dead. You gotta think about Molly, and your children! What's Brandon gonna do without his daddy? What about Ellie? Who's gonna walk her down the aisle if you're gone? I hate you, yeah, but they need you, and I love them. So put the goddamn gun down already." Eric squinted as he stared at her from across the clearing, as if he could not fully understand her. He then began shaking his head and rubbing his temples with his fingers, gun still in one hand, muzzle again dangerously close to his temple. It made Booth's stomach flop.

"No," Eric said. "No, they're better off. Better off with me gone. I killed a man! What kinda daddy is that, huh? What kinda _role model_ is that?"

"Max isn't dead, Eric," Booth said. Eric looked up at him, wet eyes widening.

"But…" he began.

"He was hurt, yeah," Booth said. "But they found him in time, and he's going to live. You didn't kill him." At that point Eric hit his knees in the sandy dirt, arms wrapped around his head.

"Oh God," he said. "Oh thank God. Oh I… oh no," he suddenly switched gears from thankful to terrified, rocking on the ground. "Oh no, no, they're gonna kill 'em, they're all gonna die…" He brought the gun up towards his head again.

"No!" Booth shouted. "Nobody's going to die. Who do you think is going to die?" Eric moaned, and it was very clear to Booth that it was indeed guilt the man was wracked with.

"My family," he groaned. "They're gonna do to them what they done to Abby and Robbie and… oh God, sweet little Laura… they're gonna put Ellie up in a tree and it's all my fault… oh God, oh Lord…"

"Nobody is going to hurt your family, Eric," Booth insisted. "I can protect them, _we_ can protect them. But you have to put the gun down and tell me who threatened you."

"I didn't even know him," Eric slurred, cradling the gun in his two hands as he knelt in the dirt, shaking his head. "Didn't even know his name, but he come up to me at the bar the other night, said he knew me. Told me… told me things, you know?"

"Things?" Booth asked. Eric nodded as he swallowed loudly.

"Things about us," he continued. "Things he wouldn't just _know_, you know? He knew all about us, all of us," he gestured widely around the clearing to include Sarah Leigh. "Said if I didn't do like he told me, he'd kill my kids, kill my wife. Said they'd go slow, not like Abby an' them. Said this time they'd go real slow, feel it all."

"What did he tell you to do?" Booth asked, feeling that he already knew the answer to his own question.

"Told me to meet 'im the next day at the bar," he said, beginning to sob again. "An' I did, and he told me, 'Max Keenan's gonna come drivin' down this road right around three. You're gonna kill him before he gets home.' And I…" He stopped, unable to continue speaking, setting the gun down briefly before picking it up and resting the muzzle under his chin.

"And you did," Booth finished for him. "Because they threatened to kill your family if you didn't." Eric nodded, choking on a sob.

"I never had nothin' against Max," Eric said thickly, clearing his throat. "I hardly knew 'im. But they said… I had to do for mine, you know? And you think you can kill a man for the right reasons and it won't get to you but… oh God, it eats you alive… oh God…" Eric pressed the end of the gun against his temple, moaning loudly.

"Eric," Sarah Leigh said in a loud, warning tone. "You put that gun down and stop that, you hear me? You wanna go home and see your kids again? See Molly? You got responsibilities!"

"Don't tell me about responsibility," Eric yelled. "I shot a man, an innocent man, I almost killed him. You wanna talk responsibility? Try bein' responsible for that, and tell me about _responsibility._" He spat the last word, but his hand fell from his head down to the dirt, grip relaxing on the weapon.

"I have a son too, Eric," Booth said in a last-ditch attempt to get Eric to relinquish the gun. The man looked up at him. "I have a son," Booth repeated. "He's eight, his name's Parker."

"Would you kill for him?" Eric asked. Booth nodded.

"In a heartbeat," he said. "Any parent would, Eric. That doesn't make you a monster, alright? It makes you a father. Now be a father, and put the gun down." Eric gave him a long, hard look, his features heavily shadowed in the moonlight. He glanced down at the gun in his hand, then tossed it aside, sending it skidding across the dirt, thankfully without accidentally discharging.

Quickly Sarah Leigh crossed the gap between Eric and herself, hitting her knees and embracing the man. He willingly accepted it, and they both began to cry. Booth holstered his own weapon, rubbing the moisture out of his eyes with the heels of his palms.


	16. Hide What You Have to Hide

**A/N:** Don't shoot! (Ha ha, pun intended... if you don't know what I'm talking about, it really _has_ been a long time since you read the previous chapter.) I know it's been 2 weeks since my last update, I know, and I'm sorry. I have no excuse for myself because I haven't had anything else occupying me except my own laziness. In short, my bad. Also short is this chapter, but it's only because I am bridging between the last chapter and the upcoming one, so hang in there. I am already in gear for the next one, so it should be up sometime this weekend. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_Oooh, what am I gonna do  
About my problems now?  
Maybe I should try to find a way to  
Kinda, sorta, maybe, work it out..._

_- Solitary Thinking, Lee Ann Womack_

* * *

When Booth, Eric, and Sarah Leigh arrived at Lydia's house an hour later, every light in the house was off, save for the bulb glowing diligently over the oven. Buckshot's tail thumped happily on the linoleum floor where he lay curled up under the dinette table when they entered. He let out a throaty whine, and Sarah Leigh shushed him.

"Molly's gotta be wondering where I am," Eric muttered, taking a look at the clock glowing on top of the television in the living room and realizing it was just past one in the morning.

"Call her," Booth said, tossing the man his cell phone. "Tell her to get over here, and bring the kids too. We need to get everybody over here."

"What are you going to do?" Sarah Leigh asked, sinking down into the well-worn couch as Booth paced across the small living room, undecided as to what to do with his hands. He would wring them, then stuff them in his pockets, then run them through his gelled hair, then crack his knuckles loudly. The sound echoed through the peculiarly quiet house like tiny gunshots.

"First I'm going to get everybody in one place," he said. "Then I want everyone to be on the same page, to know what's going on."

"Then what?" she asked. He rubbed his eyes with his hands, finally stopping and sitting down next to her on the couch. He sighed heavily.

"I don't really know," he admitted. "I'm at a loss right now. I don't know how to tackle this." Sarah Leigh pressed her lips together and nodded, pulling the hair tie out of her dark waves and running her fingers through them. She pulled her hair back up into a bun as she grabbed her purse off the kitchen counter, digging around inside it until she found what she was looking for. She popped two pieces of gum out of the foil package and began chomping them anxiously. She sat back down next to Booth, and then Eric re-entered the house.

"They're on their way," he said heavily. "I didn't know what to tell her, so I just said it was an emergency."

"What are we gonna tell them?" Sarah Leigh asked, the question directed at nobody in particular. "About Eric, what do we say?"

"We tell them the truth," Booth said. "That he was protecting his family, that he did what any man would do. They'll understand."

"You think?" she asked. Booth shrugged.

"You did," he pointed out. She nodded.

"Yeah, I guess," she said. "But what about the cops? Aren't they lookin' for him now?" Booth grimaced; he hadn't really given that much thought on their ride home. He had been more consumed with what to tell Brennan about the identity of her father's attacker. Somehow he didn't think her calm, cool rationality would understand Eric's actions when those actions nearly ended Max's life. Now Eric was the one pacing across the living room, shaking his head.

"Should I run?" he asked. "I mean, if they catch me here, y'all are gonna get it."

"Why? We didn't do anything," she said. "Can't we just play dumb if they show up?" Booth shook his head.

"I'm the one who put the call out on the radio," he said. "They know I know he's wanted. It would be obstruction of justice for harboring a fugitive if they caught him here with us." Sarah Leigh leaned back into the couch and shut her eyes, brows furrowed together. Booth watched her eyes move back and forth beneath her lids, as if she were searching the darkness for an answer.

Her eyes snapped open when they heard a vehicle rumbling down the driveway. Booth's stomach tightened; if it was the cops looking for Eric, they would all be in serious trouble. Luckily it was only Molly and the kids, having responded to Eric's request. Molly came through the door with a bleary-eyed Eleanor in her arms, Brandon trailing behind. Eric met then in the kitchen, pulling the three of them into a tight embrace. Eleanor wrapped her arms around his neck and he picked her up, holding her tight.

"God, I was so worried…" he said, running his fingers through his little girl's hair. She pulled her face back and gave him a tired, confused look.

"Why, daddy?" she asked. He shook his head.

"Nothing baby," he said. "How about I take you to your room so you can sleep, huh?" She nodded and he carried her down the hall to the pink room. Brandon yawned widely and Molly wrapped her arm around his shoulder defensively, searching Booth's face for answers.

"What's going on?" she asked. "Eric said it was an emergency, made it sound like the house was burnin' down or something." Before Booth could say anything meaningful, they heard a door open and close, and Lydia appeared in the hallway, tying a robe around her midsection.

"What the hell's everyone here for?" she asked irately, not pleased by the pow-wow taking place in her living room without her knowledge. Eric returned from tucking in Eleanor, and Lydia gave him an odd look.

"Where you been?" she asked. Molly cleared her throat.

"I'd like to know the same thing," she said. "What happened to that couch you were going for?" Eric opened his mouth, then looked down at his son by Molly's side. Lydia noticed the boy at the same time.

"Brandon, go lay down in my room and go to sleep," she instructed. Brandon opened his mouth to argue, but whatever he was about to say was interrupted by another yawn.

"Go on," Molly said, ruffling his bright red hair as she pushed him towards the hallway. He slunk down the hall and into Lydia's room, and once they heard the door close, all eyes turned to Eric.

The explanation was long and difficult, interrupted every few seconds by a series of questions from Lydia, Molly, or both simultaneously. Booth did most of the explaining, allowing Eric to evade Lydia's stank eye and shoot his wife imploring looks. By the time he had reached the part of the story where the children's lives were threatened, Molly had hit her knees on the carpet, shaking her head. Eric lifted her to her feet and walked her to the couch, where Sarah Leigh patted her back as she quietly sobbed. Booth quickly glossed over the confrontation in the woods, feeling it was better that Molly not hear about her husband's very real contemplation of suicide, for her own sake. After he finished there was a long, pregnant pause, and the air in the room seemed to crackle with tension.

"So what do we do?" Molly sniffed, wiping her eyes and looking up at Booth for the answers. He bit the inside of his lip, wishing he had them, and shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm still thinking."

"What if I just run?" Eric asked. "You know, get in the truck, take off. Then y'all wouldn't get in trouble for keepin' me, and maybe I wouldn't have to go to jail."

"They'd find you eventually," Booth said. "There's a warrant out for your arrest, for attempted murder. Every cop in Florida is looking for you, it wouldn't take long."

"Should he turn himself in?" Lydia asked. Booth sighed through his nose.

"That might be the best option right now," he finally said. "Until I can figure out how the hell we're going to get you off attempted murder charges, it might just be better to turn yourself in."

"Wouldn't that just be an admission of guilt?" Molly asked.

"Molly, he's guilty," Sarah Leigh said, kindly but firmly. "If he admitted to it, he'd only be telling the truth." Booth considered her words, then suddenly his face lit up.

"Not necessarily," he said slowly, tapping his chin. He began to bounce on his heels as the ideas flooded his brain, and he finally clapped his hands together.

"What?" Molly asked. "What do you mean by that?" Booth shook his head, grabbing his keys off the top of the television.

"Eric, come on," he said, now positively buzzing. "We're going down to the jail."

"What?" he said. "But you said I—"

"Just come on," he said. "I've got an idea, I'll explain on the way. Just come on." Eric nodded, and embraced Molly again. Sarah Leigh patted him reassuringly on the shoulder, their old animosity seemingly forgotten, and Lydia gave him a nod as they left. Eric got into the front seat of Booth's SUV, but the agent shook his head.

"No, here, take these," he said, tossing handcuffs to the man, who gave him a perplexed look. "Put them on."

"Why?" he asked. Booth sighed.

"Just do it," he said. "And get in the back seat."

"Am I under arrest?" he asked.

"Kind of," Booth said. "We're going to go with that, anyway."

"Don't you have to read me my rights?" Eric asked sarcastically as he got out and climbed into the back seat, shutting the door and putting his seatbelt on before snapping himself into the metal cuffs. Booth rolled his eyes.

"You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law, you have the right to an attorney, if you can't afford one, one will be appointed to your case." Booth said this very quickly and in one breath, then smiled. "But you don't have to worry, because I already know who's going to be working your case." Eric quirked a brow at him.

"Oh yeah?" the cuffed man asked. Booth nodded.

"I have a friend in D.C.," he said casually. "She's a federal prosecutor, but she makes one hell of a defense attorney, and she owes me a favor."


	17. The Policy of Truth

**A/N:** Told you I'd be quicker about getting this chapter up. :) It's not as if I have anything else to do, considering the state of Florida is pretty much under water at this point. I don't think it's ever going to stop raining. Fortunately though, rain seems to trigger my Muse, so it means lots of ideas and motivation for me to write! Enjoy this chapter, and let me know what you think.

* * *

_When I was just a baby, my mama told me, Son,  
Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns  
But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die  
When I hear that whistle blowing,  
I hang my head and cry..._

_- Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash_

* * *

Booth didn't feel right leaving Eric in the care of the Clay County deputies, but he knew they didn't have any other choice for the time being. On their way to the county jail, Booth had given Eric one rule of utmost importance to follow—he was not allowed to open his mouth. He would take full advantage of his Fifth Amendment right and refuse to answer any and all questions posed to him, until Booth was able to conference first and foremost with Max, and then Caroline Julian.

Unwilling to return to Lydia's house and be grilled about his game plan, Booth drove the hour-long trip back into Jacksonville instead. He parked in the hospital garage and leaned his backrest back, struggling to get comfortable in the awkwardly bent seat. He finally found a suitable position, then locked the car doors and fell asleep, thankful for the relative silence and darkness of the garage. No Lydia, no Molly, no Sarah Leigh, no children.

His sleep was not long lived, and by five-thirty in the morning he was awake again, swearing quietly under his breath as he returned his seat to the upright position and felt a terrible twinge in his back. He certainly wasn't in his early twenties anymore—back then he could fall asleep anywhere, in any position, and wake up fit as a fiddle. Now he felt like an old dog, struggling to get comfortable and groaning as his joints creaked with each good-morning step.

He walked around the outside of the hospital with his hands shoved into his pockets, waiting for the sun to rise and wondering how he was going to tell Brennan. He had considered different possibilities during his drive up to the city, but none of them seemed very appealing. It was one thing to tell a stranger that one of their family members—someone they loved, someone they trusted, someone who was supposed to be on their side—was a murderer. But she had just discovered this family, they had just become a part of her life. He kicked at the gravel lining the inside edge of the sidewalk; it wasn't fair for her. She deserved the best family, the most supportive family, the most loving. She already had enough murderers and criminals in her family—she didn't need more.

Finally the sun began to peek over the horizon, burning the bare nape of his neck even at that early morning hour, and he entered the hospital. He paid for a sludgy coffee and a stale bagel with a handful of packets of "cream cheese product spread", and wolfed it down before taking the elevator all the way up to the SICU. The bitter coffee clashed with the fake cheese spread in his stomach as his nerves kicked in, and he wiped his palms on his pants. This was just how he felt when he found out her parents' true identities, and knew he had to tell her. No, this was actually worse—now he really knew her, now he really cared for her. Now he even… he shook his head, swallowing back the acrid taste in the back of his throat and banishing that word before he could think too much about it.

He stood outside the closed door of Max's room, wondering if he should knock or not. He secretly hoped they were both still sound asleep, so he could postpone this difficult conversation for a few more hours. He had no such luck, however, when the door suddenly opened and the short black woman from the previous night appeared in front of him.

"You back to visit?" she asked, much more cheerful that morning than she had been before. Booth nodded, and she returned the gesture. "He's awake, they're both eating now." Booth stepped back to let her pass, and then stepped through the door into the small room, gently shutting it behind him.

"Agent Booth," Max greeted in a gravelly voice, lifting a spoon in greeting. His throat was apparently still raw from the intubation tube, but the man looked to be in good spirits. He was sitting upright in the bed, tray set up in front of him, picking through the semi-solid breakfast foods presented to him by the nurse. In the chair next to his bed, Brennan spread some of the same fake cream cheese Booth had eaten earlier on a crescent roll. She looked up and smiled, looking tired but pleased.

"Hey Max, how are you feeling?" Booth asked. The older man nodded, swallowing down a spoonful of grits before he answered.

"Fine," he said. "I feel fine. A little sore, but you know, I've been worse. How about you? You look like hell." He laughed, then coughed, and Booth smiled wearily. Brennan's brows furrowed.

"You do look exhausted," she observed. "Are you alright?"

"I had a late night," he said, pulling the other chair over by Max's bed, across from Brennan's, and taking a seat.

"Did you make any headway on the case?" Brennan asked, taking a bite of her roll. She saw Booth's face darken as soon as she asked the question, and her brows knitted together. "What, what happened?" He sighed, leaning forward in the seat and resting his elbows on his knees.

"It was Eric," he said plainly, feeling she would appreciate a blunt, honest answer rather than his desire to beat around the bush. The hand holding her breakfast stopped half-way to her mouth, hanging in mid-air as her eyes grew wide.

"What?" she said, stunned. Max didn't seem particularly surprised by the reveal. Booth immediately launched into the story, sparing her no detail—Molly's truck in the parking lot, his trip to The Dock with Sarah Leigh, traipsing through the woods in the dark, and Eric's heartfelt remorse and suicidal inclination in the clearing. He went all the way through to the point where he dropped Eric off at the jail, then drove in to Jacksonville.

"And now I'm here," he finished, holding his hands out honestly as if to show that he had nothing left. "Molly and the kids are staying with Lydia, so now we just have to figure out what to do about Eric."

"What do you mean, what to do about him?" Brennan asked. "He's in jail, he confessed, it's done."

"I don't want to press charges," Max piped in. Brennan nearly dropped her crescent roll, turning to her father with a scandalized look.

"Dad, he tried to kill you!" she said.

"He did the right thing," Max said. Booth thought vaguely that this looked like one of those moments where, in a cartoon world, Brennan's jaw would have to have been picked up off the floor.

"The _right thing_?" she said. "How in the hell is trying to kill you the right thing?"

"In case you don't remember clearly," Max began, pushing himself further up in his seat and pointing his spoon at her. "Eric isn't the only father you know who ended a man's life—or tried to—to protect his family." Brennan scoffed, shaking her head.

"That was completely different," she said.

"How?" Max asked. "Tempe, how was it different? The only difference is that I actually did kill the men I was after. The only difference is that mine were good and dead when I got through with them."

"Dad, stop," she said. Max shook his head.

"No, I won't," he said. "It's no different, what Eric did for his kids and what I did for you and Russ. I know exactly what was going through Eric's head when he fired that gun; I know what was under his skin. And I don't blame him at all for it." Brennan breathed angrily through her nose, crossing her arms and shaking her head. Max also crossed his arms, IVs still snaking out from the tops of his hands, clearly just as resolute in his beliefs. Booth sat back in his chair, eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them, waiting for someone else to break the silence. Max finally looked away from his daughter, turning his gaze to Booth.

"So is he off the hook?" Max asked. "If I don't press charges, I mean." Booth shook his head.

"Not really," he admitted, and Brennan looked up at him. "Even if you as the victim don't charge him, the state probably will. Someone like Eric who tries to kill another person is considered a menace to society, a public enemy, you know? It would end up going to court as him versus the State of Florida, and the state would prosecute." Brennan looked a little relieved by that information, but Max only appeared frustrated.

"What if I won't testify?" Max asked. Booth shrugged.

"I was thinking about that," he said. "I've been thinking about a lot of things, possible loopholes and all…"

"Booth, how can you possibly search for legal loopholes to get Eric _out_ of trouble?" Brennan asked, sounding almost hurt. "He's guilty, he's a criminal. It's your job to put people like him in jail." He bit down on the inside of his cheek, feeling his stomach churn. She had essentially called him a traitor, and part of him felt that way.

"Bones, it's complicated…"

"No, it's not," she said, rising from her chair and looking down at him in a very disappointed way. "It's very simple. You're just not being objective." With that she left the room, allowing the door to bang shut behind her. Booth rubbed his face with his hands, groaning and leaning back into his chair. Max chuckled, and Booth peered through his parted fingers at the man, scrunching his eyebrows.

"I should go talk to her," Booth said, starting to rise from his chair. Max held his hand up to halt him, though.

"Don't, just let her go," he said, wry smile touching his lips. "She'll come around. You know Tempe; she sees things in black and white. She won't see the shades of grey right off the bat. She just needs a little time alone to think about it, is all." Booth blew a frustrated sigh through his nose, rubbing a hand over his uncharacteristically messy hair.

"I hope so," he said, sounding defeated. Max nodded, opening a container of chocolate pudding and setting to work on it.

"She will," Max said. "Now, what about those loopholes?"

oOoOoOoOo

"Seeley Booth, that is the last time I _ever_ ask you to water my plants while I'm out of town!" Caroline Julian entered Max Keenan's hospital room late that afternoon as if she had been blown in by the dark, brooding storm clouds outside his window. Booth looked over from the television screen, where he and Max were watching a NCAA football game from 1994 on SunSports. He grinned and the woman rolled her eyes in response, taking a seat in the vacant chair by Max's bed and shaking the man's hand.

"Pleasure to see you again, Caroline," Max said dashingly. She gave him a discerning look.

"Uh huh," she said, popping open her briefcase and pulling out a stack of papers. "Pleasure my nothin'. Calling me in the middle of the night, tellin' me it's an emergency, putting me on the first flight to Hell…"

"Not a fan of the sunshine state?" Booth asked, withholding a smile. Caroline cut him down with her gaze.

"Cherie, I grew up in the south," she said. "I moved to D.C. to get _away_ from humidity like this. And by the way, you over-watering my begonias while I'm gone for a week does not qualify you to call upon me for favors of any kind, especially not this kind! Where's Dr. Brennan? Shouldn't she be here?"

"She's pissed at Booth," Max said slyly. "She took off a couple of hours ago, haven't seen her since." Caroline raised her brows at Booth amusedly, and he groaned.

"I see," Caroline smirked. "Well, I guess we'll just go on without her, then."

"Great," Booth said tartly. "So I guess you got the paperwork I faxed you from the jail?" Caroline nodded, patting the stack of papers in her lap.

"I did," she said, flipping to one page in particular. "Eric James Holby, age thirty-six, six foot, three inches tall…"

"Right, right," Booth said, encouraging her to move faster. She gave him a supremely ugly look, and he shrunk back into his seat. She cleared her throat and continued.

"Charged with attempted murder in the first degree," she finished. "And the evidence is pretty compelling. The victim's eye-witness account of the attack, evidence on and within the truck that corroborates with the victim's story, a positive match between the shells gathered at the scene and the gun left in Mr. Holby's vehicle, with his fingerprints on it. Agent Booth, can I ask you something?"

"What?" he asked.

"Are you sure you want me here to defend this man? Because judging by everything in this file, it would seem like you'd want me prosecuting him instead. After all, he did try to kill Max Keenan, and was very nearly a success."

"It's complicated, Caroline," Booth said, sounding exhausted. "He did the wrong thing, but for the right reasons. He did it for his family."

"I see," she said, looking at Max out of the corner of her eye. "Like some other people who may or may not be seated in this very room, I suppose."

"Exactly," Max said. "That's why I don't want to press charges, I don't want him to go down for it."

"Even if you don't press charges, the state will most likely pursue the case," Caroline said. Booth nodded.

"I know," he said. "But what if Max refused to testify against him? What if he retracted his previous statement?" Caroline shook her head.

"For one, all of the physical evidence points to Mr. Holby, so even without Max's account it's still a solid case against him," she explained. "And two, if the state of Florida calls Max to the stand and he refuses to testify, he can be held in contempt of the court. Eric Holby is a public enemy, and anyone who interferes with the administration of justice against a violent offender like him will be punished as a criminal too."

"Even though I was the victim of the crime?" Max asked. Caroline nodded.

"Well, think of it like this," she said. "Let's say an abusive husband tries to kill his wife, tries to strangle her in front of their kids, but he doesn't go through with it and she lives. She's so screwed up that she doesn't want to press charges, she thinks she _loves him_. Victim or not, she's inhibiting the court's ability to lock up an extremely violent, dangerous member of society by not testifying against him in court. It's important that the court system be able to hold all parties accountable in a case, even the innocent parties."

"So we're screwed, then," Booth said. Caroline held up a finger.

"Not yet, Cherie," she said. "I did a little digging while I was on the way down, and I found a few loopholes we might be able to work in our favor."

"Like what?" Booth asked.

"Well, first of all, Florida has a castle law," Caroline explained.

"What's a castle law?" Max asked.

"Castle laws are laws that allow citizens of certain states to use deadly force, if necessary, to protect themselves against illegal trespassing and attack," Booth explained. "Some states have duty to retreat laws that require you to try and safely exit the habitation before using force, but others don't. The definition of what constitutes a 'habitation' varies by state."

"Exactly," Caroline cut in. "And in Florida, a 'habitation' is just about anywhere a person can possibly be. It includes buildings of any kind where the person may be a permanent or impermanent resident, mobile or immobile, including tents, as well as motorized or non-motorized vehicles."

"Vehicles?" Booth asked. Caroline smiled and nodded.

"Yes," she said. "Vehicles. In the state of Florida, if a person feels threatened within their vehicle by a potential attacker or trespasser outside of their vehicle, they are within their legal rights to use deadly force against said attacker. Florida has no duty to retreat law—in fact, they have a specific clause in their Justifiable Use of Force statute known as a 'stand your ground' clause, which states that the individual has no duty to retreat from a potential attack, and is fully entitled to meet force with force as a means to protect their domain."

"Well that's convenient," Max said. Booth almost laughed.

"No kidding," he said. "You think we can use that in our favor?" Caroline pursed her lips and hesitated to nod.

"I think we might be able to," she said. "You said that after the accident, Max got out of the car and walked up to the window of Eric Holby's truck, correct?" Both men nodded.

"I did," Max said. "I got out 'cause I was pissed, walked around to the side of his truck to ask him what the hell he slammed on his brakes for. There was no light, nothing in the road…"

"Good," Caroline said, pulling a pen out of her briefcase and jotting loopy notes in the margins of her printed sheets. "Great. The firearm in the truck was registered to him, he's completely within his legal rights to be in possession of the gun, so that's not a problem. If we can play up the castle law angle, we might just be able to get him off with a few months parole instead of several years in prison."

"Caroline, I could just kiss you right now," Booth said, feeling a huge weight lift from his shoulders. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"You better not," she said, straightening the stack of papers and putting them back in her briefcase before snapping it shut. "I am still not in a good mood with you. Now, I'm going to go down to the jail and meet with Mr. Holby and discuss his options with him. Booth, are you coming with me?"

"Not right now," he said. "I think I need to find Bones and talk to her first. She was pretty upset with me when she left and I…"

"Fine, fine," Caroline interrupted, waving him off and shaking her head. "I don't need to hear your sappy love story, just go on. I can find the jail just fine without you." Booth scowled at her, and she tried not to smile as she tutted at him.

"Max, I'll see you later," Booth said, standing up and shaking his hand. "I still want to talk to you about your meeting with that contact, just not now. Tomorrow. And Caroline? Thanks, really." She rolled her eyes.

"Uh huh," she said. "You just don't come around asking me for any more favors, that's how you can thank me." He grinned and took off, eager to find his partner and put things right with her.


	18. The Albatross

**A/N:** So, I've noticed a trend here. When I write a hanger, I almost always update within 2-3 days. When I write a more "closed" chapter ending, it could be a week or two before the next update. This is obviously a case of the latter. I blame Baroness Orczy (if you've never read The Scarlet Pimpernel, do yourself a favor and do it), Fran Drescher (I watch way too much of The Nanny), and the Stanley Cup Finals (go Pens!) for the delay in updates. You can blame whoever you like. :) Anyway, this chapter is finally up, so read it and let me know what you think. Oh, also, if you're on Twitter, feel free to twitter me... my username is 2PennySparrow. Cookie points if you can figure out what the name means. Enjoy!

* * *

_Water, water, every where,  
And all the boards did shrink;  
Water, water, every where,  
Nor any drop to drink..._

_

* * *

_

Brennan got as far as the parking garage before she realized that she had not driven herself to the hospital. Frustrated, she ran her fingers through her hair and sighed before pulling her phone out of her pocket.

"Hello?" a voice on the other line said through what sounded like a mouth full of food. Brennan was not surprised.

"Hey," she said, hearing her own voice echo through the garage and feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Almost four years later, and she still got chills being alone in one.

"What's wrong?" Sarah Leigh asked, frown evident in her voice. Brennan cleared her throat.

"I don't know if you're at home or…"

"Are you still at the hospital?" she asked. "Do you need me to come get you? Are you okay?" Brennan smiled despite her current frustration. She heard the scraping sound of a chair being pushed away from a table in the background of the other line.

"I'm fine," she said. "But I would appreciate a ride home, if it's not too much trouble. I don't want you to drive all the way out here if—"

"Honey, trust me, anywhere I go is a long drive, driving don't bother me," she said. "I'll be there in an hour." Brennan left the parking garage and waited in the atrium just inside the hospital's main entrance, and true to her word, Sarah Leigh was wandering around looking for her within an hour's time.

"You ready?" she asked as she approached Brennan, who rose from her chair and stretched her arms high over her head, wincing. Her back was twisted from sleeping upright in a chair by her father's bedside the night previous.

"Quite," Brennan said, in a tone that made Sarah Leigh raise her eyebrows.

"You sure you're alright?" she asked.

"I'm fine," Brennan repeated with stress as they exited the hospital, stomping down the narrow cement staircase that lead to the ground floor of the parking garage.

"Okay," Sarah Leigh said. "But when you say 'fine', do you mean, 'really fine' fine, or like, 'I'm gonna run a bitch down with my car' fine? Just so I know." At the base of the stairs Brennan turned to face her cousin with a supremely frustrated scowl, which was met by Sarah Leigh's highly amused, poorly-concealed smile. Brennan bit the inside of her cheek and rolled her eyes.

"I am simply a little frustrated, is all," Brennan said in a tense, carefully articulated way. Sarah Leigh unlocked the doors of her battered, ancient white Corolla, covered in a fine layer of limestone dust, taking the driver's seat while Brennan settled into the passenger's side. Sarah Leigh's vehicle was considerably cleaner than Lydia's, with little detritus in the floor space other than a McDonald's bag, presumably from that morning's drive. She also had an air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror, a cheap cardboard cut-out shaped like a Christmas tree and scented similarly. She cranked the engine, and the radio turned on, blasting a local radio station loudly enough to make Brennan jump out of her skin. Sarah Leigh hastily turned the volume down, smiling sheepishly.

"Sorry," she said. "I like to jam when I drive." Brennan nodded, her thoughts drifting back to another person who liked to 'jam' while they drove, and her face must have darkened visibly from the expression that clouded Sarah Leigh's.

"What?" her cousin asked. "Are you gonna tell me what's eatin' you, or do I have to guess? Because I suck at twenty questions, let me tell you." This elicited a small smile from Brennan, which seemed to have been Sarah Leigh's goal, because her face brightened as well. Brennan blew air through her nose frustratedly and pulled her feet up into the seat with her, resting her arms around her legs.

"Booth is bringing Caroline down from D.C. to work on Eric's case," Brennan said, and Sarah Leigh's brows flashed.

"Caroline, huh?" she said. "Is Caroline hot? Is that what's buggin' you?" Brennan couldn't help herself—she let out a bark-like laugh and shook her head.

"No, not at all," she said. "Well, I mean, Caroline is a fairly attractive woman for her age, but she has to be in her fifties now."

"So she's a cougar?" Sarah Leigh asked. Brennan scrunched her brows.

"I don't know what that means," she said. Sarah Leigh smirked as she merged onto the highway.

"You know," she said. "A cougar. Like, a hot older lady who goes for younger guys." Brennan's mouth formed a small 'o' of understanding, and she shook her head.

"No, Caroline isn't a cougar," she said. "There's no sexual component in her relationship with Booth. It's strictly professional."

"Kind of like y'all's relationship is 'strictly professional', or you mean really?" she asked.

"I mean really," Brennan said, before understanding the implications of what she had just said. Her face flushed as she added, "Wait… I mean, when I say Booth and I are strictly professional, I mean that as well, it's just that, well, you…" At this point Sarah Leigh was laughing too loudly to hear anything Brennan was stammering anyway. She waved her off, trying to wipe a tear from her eye and focus on the road.

"I get it, I get it," she said, composing herself. "Go on." Brennan glowered at her cousin momentarily before continuing her story.

"Anyway," she said. "Caroline is a federal prosecutor, but she also has a history of working defense cases when Booth asks her to, as a favor to him. She'll do favors, at a certain price," she added, remembering the Christmas before last.

"And you're sure this lady ain't a cougar?" Sarah Leigh asked skeptically.

"I'm quite positive," she said. "Her favors generally aren't sexual in nature. Well, the one she did for me ended up having a sexual component, but…"

"Woah, _too_ much information!" Sarah Leigh said loudly, cutting her off. "I know I said we don't judge family, but damn girl, some things I just don't need to know." Brennan gave her a highly confused look, until comprehension finally dawned, and she laughed.

"No, I don't mean… never mind," she said, feeling the story would take too much time to explain properly anyway. "_Anyway_, she's coming down here to try and find some sort of loophole in Florida law to get Eric off of his attempted murder charges, because my father doesn't want to press charges and Booth seems to think he was justified in his actions."

"And you don't?" Sarah Leigh asked. Brennan shook her head.

"Of course not," she said, obviously struggling between her anger and emotion from the night previous. "Eric tried to kill my father; he shot him on the side of the road and left… left him to die. He deserves to go to jail for what he did. He's guilty of a crime, Sarah Leigh. He should pay for that crime." Sarah Leigh turned and looked at her cousin as she drove, seeming to consider her deeply. She opened her mouth as if to speak, and then, in a moment of uncharacteristic reserve, closed it. She turned back to the road and they drove in silence for so long that Brennan began to wonder if she was getting what Booth called the 'cold shoulder.'

Finally, thirty or so miles later, the tip of Sarah Leigh's tongue darted across her lips, and she took a breath.

"Legally, yeah," she began. "He broke the law, he did a real bad thing, and he should probably go to jail. Legally." She pressed her lips together for a minute, then went on. "But it ain't always about what's legal and what's not. Sometimes it's about what's right and what's wrong. Legal and right aren't always the same, Temperance. Just 'cause it's legal don't make it right, and just 'cause it's illegal doesn't mean it's always wrong. Haven't you ever done something that might not've been legal, or that mighta broke a rule, but you knew it was right?"

Brennan considered her cousin's question silently. She remembered her father's hearing, when she thought he might face life in prison, or worse, for the murder of Deputy Director Kirby. A murder that was carried out in her own defense, and that of her brother. She remembered that moment of desperation—of recklessness arising from despair—and her carefully exacted decision. She remembered Booth's intenseness, his darkness, as he was asked that question—could she have done it? Did she have the means, the motive, the time? Was it possible that more than one person could have murdered Kirby, thus planting the seed of doubt in the jury? Her chest tightened as he looked slowly from the judge, to her. Her head tilted slightly, eyes begging. Head in neutral, heart in overdrive.

They didn't talk for the rest of the drive home, but it wasn't a tense ride. There was an unspoken understanding, and they let the radio DJ fill the empty spaces. Molly's truck was parked outside of Lydia's house when they arrived, but Eric's had already been impounded by the police for evidence. Brennan could see Molly sitting out on the porch, head in her hands; the thunder reverberating through the hanging black clouds that encroached on their part of the river seemed to give her silent posture a voice. The dogs that normally greeted them were nowhere to be seen—they had assumedly taken shelter under a vehicle somewhere from the rapidly approaching storm.

When Brennan stepped out of the car, everything around her felt still and somehow charged. Like every creature, every tree, even the very particles of air around her were buzzing with potential energy, waiting to let go. A hot wind blew across the grassy yard, and she could feel the storm. Within and without, it was everywhere. Lightning cracked across the sky, and Sarah Leigh jumped in her skin.

"I'm going in," she said, her voice seeming oddly loud. Brennan was almost unnerved by this peculiar atmospheric change that seemed to overtake the area before a thunder storm hit—everything was quiet, everything tense with anticipation. If she were not so rational, she might even believe the creeping sensation up the nape of her neck that made her think all the birds were holding their collective breath too, waiting for the rain to fall.

Brennan nodded, and Sarah Leigh went in through the porch, acknowledging Molly with a nod before disappearing through the door. Molly looked up, and caught Brennan's eye through the dark screen barrier that wrapped around the enclosure. They both looked down, and Brennan shoved her hands in her jean pockets. Another roll of thunder rattled the earth and all things on it, and Brennan felt static ripple over her skin. She took that as a cue to seek shelter, and held her breath as she let herself into the porch, old door banging awkwardly behind her.

Molly sat in an old, ugly wicker loveseat, upholstered with bright floral fabric that looked better suited to a retirement home in Boca. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and the dark curls that fell just below her chin were untamed and wild with humidity, making her head look a bit larger than it actually was. Everything about her, from her frown to her eyes to the way she sat in the ugly chair, sagged, as if gravity worked harder on her than the rest of the world. She looked up at Brennan, who for once in her life found it very difficult to keep eye contact.

"Molly…"

"No, wait," Molly said, quiet but commanding attention, as was her way. "Look Temperance, I know Eric did a bad thing. A horrible thing. He tried to kill your dad, and I wouldn't blame you if you never wanted to see him again, or me, or any of us. My dad got killed, so I know what that hate feels like."

"Molly, I…"

"I can't lose him." Molly said it plainly, hazy blue eyes glazed over as she gave Brennan an almost pleading look. "I just… I can't. I know Eric ain't a boy scout, alright? I know that. He drinks too much, he swears too much, he bitches too much. He's a jerk and a pig and hell, sometimes I wonder who screwed his head on backwards. He's not the smartest, he's not the hardest working, he's not the nicest or the most thoughtful man alive.

"But he's mine, Temperance. All the things he's not don't matter to me, 'cause he's mine. He comes home to me. He looks out for me. He was... he was willing to kill. For me, for our kids, for our family. He ain't perfect, but he's mine, and I can't lose that. Please, please understand." Brennan sucked in a deep breath, eyes flicking back and forth between her cousin's, so grief-stricken that she could hardly keep them open. She sat down on the ugly loveseat next to Molly and, after a moment of hesitation, took the woman's hands in hers, the way Angela had done to her so many times before.

"I understand." And she did. The recklessness, the irrationality ruling, the heart disregarding the head's wishes. That, like the sky overhead, the world was not made of black and white but infinite shades of grey. That one person could be so lost without another, that they could be so empty, that just the idea of that loss could drive them to desperation, to irrationality. That love was irrational, and that did not make it wrong. That you could be wrong, and still be right. That loving someone, no matter how you demonstrated that love, was always, always right. She finally understood that.

Molly broke, and the sky did too. Water, water, everywhere.

* * *

_The silly buckets on the deck,  
That had so long remained,  
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;  
And when I awoke, it rained._

_- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge_


	19. It Rains in Heaven All Day Long

**A/N:** Would you look at that, I didn't wait a week to update this time. In fact, I didn't even wait 24 hours. Just goes to show what a rainy afternoon and an earache will do for you. Last chapter I diverged from the country music theme at the beginning/end of the chapter, which many of you noticed. I'm glad you actually read the lyrics I choose - sometimes I think you skip the author's notes and the lyrics and go straight to the story (which is fine too). This chapter's poem is my absolute favorite poem ever. If you've never read it in its entirety, I highly recommend it. That said, enjoy the chapter, and let me know what you think! Also, if you are following me on Twitter and I don't know who you are, let me know so I can follow you too. :)

* * *

_somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond  
any experience,your eyes have their silence:  
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,  
or which i cannot touch because they are too near_...

* * *

The downpour on Booth's drive back to Lydia's house was absolutely torrential. The threatening clouds that had seemed to blow Caroline into the hospital had unleashed their load on Jacksonville, and even as he passed out of the city limits (which extended far beyond the actual city) the rain still fell so heavily that he could barely see the other cars on the road. Twice he had to pull over; even with his windshield wipers on high, he simply could not see the road in front of him.

Cool silvery ripples decorated the windows of the SUV as he lounged irritably in the parked vehicle on the side of the interstate—he was eager to patch things up with his partner, and the longer he had to sit on the side of the road waiting out the worst of the storm, the longer it would be before he saw her.

Never in his life had he seen rain like this. Not in D.C., where the rain was cool and refreshing, rinsing the city clean every time a light shower fell. Not in Pennsylvania, his home state, where the rain that fell always seemed to land lightly, carefully parting the dry air like delicate fingers. Not in the deserts he had scoured, where there simply was no rain—just miles and miles of sand.

Florida rain was different. You could feel the air, thick with a palpable humidity that oppressed the senses, long before the storm came, and long after. Each morning, each afternoon, even in the dark night, everything was sticky with moisture. It had rained every afternoon the entire week they had been there—Lydia said it was the time of year. Summer, she said, was the rainy season. _Come back in December,_ she told him, _and you won't see another rain drop 'til March._ He couldn't imagine it. He couldn't imagine this state ever running dry, and yet every afternoon when the torrents came—when thunder rattled the walls of the small house, when the river swelled up on its banks, when you couldn't even see your own vehicle in the driveway from all the rain—like clockwork someone would say, with a hint of wisdom, "Lord knows we need the rain." Need the rain? He couldn't remember ever having been anywhere that was so wet. But even a child as young as Maya had come to accept the peal of thunder that signaled all of the children out of the water, wrapping themselves in their towels and scrambling indoors to wait out the storm. It was as natural to them as breathing.

The rain finally let up to the point that Booth could see the lines on the road, and he cranked the engine, setting himself back on the path towards Brennan. He couldn't find a weather update on any of the radio stations he flipped through—apparently this kind of weather was not out of the ordinary and did not warrant discussing—but if he had to guess, he would assume there was a rather long band of rain terrorizing the state, because the rain did not truly lighten or stop at any point during his hour drive back to Lydia's. That or it was just following him, which given his luck lately he wouldn't doubt.

Gritty mud splashed the underside of his SUV as he careened down her dirt road, now unable to see and avoid the potholes because the entire road was a veritable mud bog. None of his usual welcoming committee was in the yard when he parked next to Sarah Leigh's little clunker, washed clean in the downpour, and he vaguely wondered where a dog might hide in weather like this. He ran across the yard as if he were trying to dart raindrops—something most people do without thinking about how silly they look, and how useless the action really is—and let himself in through the side door, dripping water on the kitchen's linoleum floor as he quietly shut the door behind him.

He turned and saw three pairs of eyes focused intently on him from the couch in the living room, and felt as if he had been caught in the act of something. Three sets of blue eyes, all strikingly similar, all watching him with varying degrees of scrutiny. He looked to the one that mattered, the one sitting in the middle, and she did not look away. _That's a good sign_, he thought to himself as he kicked his muddy shoes off and peeled the wet socks away from his feet. Thunder clapped, and the window panes shook.

Sarah Leigh and Molly shot each other simultaneous looks, then excused themselves from the room. They disappeared in back, leaving Booth standing in the kitchen staring at Brennan, sitting in the living room. The house was bizarrely quiet—aside from the heavy drum of rain, there was no noise. Everyone seemed to be somewhere else, which bothered Booth because he could not keep an eye on the endangered brood; at the moment, though, he was glad for he and Brennan's privacy.

"Hey," he said as he lowered himself onto the couch, giving her ample room in case she was still angry with him. Her face showed no anger, though—exhaustion, perhaps, but not anger. There was something delicate about it, like she was carved from blown glass and the thunder might shatter her. Like they were all china dolls, fragile figurines that had been played with far too roughly.

"Hey," she replied, and he was right, she wasn't angry. There was no hint of the previous disgust in her voice, and he felt the muscles in his shoulders ease. He hadn't realized he had been holding them tense until that moment.

"Caroline came," he said, not knowing what else to say. He heard a loud, amused snort from somewhere down the hall, and saw Brennan's lips curl up in a tender, wry smile. She looked up, obviously expecting him to say more, and he cleared his throat. "Yeah, well, uhm… she did, a little while ago. She visited with Max and we talked about… you know… circumstances."

"Eric's circumstances," Brennan said. "The possibility of getting him off of the attempted murder charges, right?" Booth swallowed and nodded, peculiarly anxious. It was as if he was afraid she would lash out at him again like she had before, accuse him of treachery, of treason.

"Right," he said. "She said Florida has a castle law, and given that Max doesn't want to press charges, she might be able to get him off the hook with that." Brennan pressed her lips together and drew a breath, and Booth reciprocated by sighing heavily.

"Look, Bones, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel like I was picking sides or ganging up on you, I just…"

"No, it's okay," she interrupted. "I understand. The legality of an action has nothing to do with its moral content. Sometimes things that may… that may seem wrong, if we only look at them from a strictly analytical viewpoint… might actually be the best course of action, if one considers the circumstances. Things aren't always as clear-cut as I would prefer for them to be, but that's just how they are, and I have to adjust accordingly." Booth raised his brows in surprise. Where did all this come from? Not four hours ago she had been accusing him of a nearly criminal act, and now she understood?

"That's… that's impressive, Bones," he said, relaxing in his seat and hesitating to close the gap, finally resting his arm around her shoulders. "What changed your mind?"

"Some intelligent counsel," she said, smiling and allowing herself to ease into his side and accept the gesture of affection. "And a very long car ride."

"You really get a lot of thinking done when you have to drive an hour to get anywhere, don't you?" Booth asked, and they both chuckled.

"Apparently," she said, then sighed in a way that Booth could not distinguish.

"What?" he asked.

"I'm sorry about what I said at the hospital," she said. "I kind of… how do you say it… bit your head off." Booth laughed good-naturedly, leaning his head in so that it touched hers.

"You didn't bite my head off," he said. "You were just frustrated, and you had good reason to be. You saw something that you didn't think was right, and I didn't exactly listen to your concerns. It's okay."

"But it's not okay, Booth," she insisted. "I questioned your integrity, and I should never have done that. Never in my life have I met anybody with the innate moral sensibility that you have, and it was wrong of me to question that judgment. We both know that's not my strong suit."

"Hey," Booth said, pulling his face back slightly so that their eyes could properly meet. "Your dad was almost killed, okay? You just wanted justice, you just wanted the person who attacked him to get what they had coming. That's as morally sound as anything. Don't sell yourself short, Temperance. You have a good heart." He smiled, and added, "Your big squinty head just gets in the way sometimes." She laughed and backhanded him in the chest, and he feigned pain.

"Thanks, Booth," she said after the quiet laughter had died down. They both leaned back into the couch, his arm still around her, and she allowed her head to rest against his shoulder. He liked sitting that way with her, feeling her breathe on his neck, fingers trailing up and down the smooth skin of her upper arm. They fit that way.

"Any time," he said. She turned her face slightly and looked up at him, and he turned his down towards hers. They were very close, and both well aware of it. His fingers stilled on her arm, and her heart betrayed her—he could feel it thumping through her, increasing the longer they held each other's gaze.

"So what's next?" she asked, barely above a whisper, and Booth wasn't sure if she meant in the big convoluted mess that was her family's saga, or something else.

"Uhm," he said, swallowing loudly. "Well, I want to go tonight or tomorrow and, uh, talk to Max about what happened at his meeting with that contact. I assume word has spread to everyone about Eric's situation?" Their faces were still just as close, phenomenally so, and when Brennan nodded her nose nearly grazed his.

"Yes," she said breathlessly, and he wished he could hear it louder, with a little more oomph. "You know them, news spreads like wildflowers." He grinned.

"I think you mean wildfire," he corrected quietly, the deep resonance of his voice rumbling through his chest and hers. She didn't answer, but instead darted her tongue across her lips, taking a shaky breath and looking down for a split second before being inexplicably drawn back to his eyes. Was it possible that he was even closer? He couldn't possibly get any closer without…

Her lips were soft, supple, like plump rose hips. All the lightning in the sky was theirs—it came from them, it was borne of them. His other hand came up to her cheek, through her hair, and they quickly became two tangled creatures, wrapped up tightly in one another.

The case, the hospital, the entire God-forsaken humid peninsula melted away, leaving nothing but the rain and two of them behind. They dissolved together into the water, and they were so small, and it was so perfect. It was all they needed.

* * *

_(i do not know what it is about you that closes  
and opens;only something in me understands  
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)  
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands_

_- somewhere I have never travelled,gladly beyond by E.E. Cummings  
_


	20. We'll All Be Portions for Foxes

_Fire burns, waves crash  
Seeds grow and good things last  
Ships sail, dreams fly  
Night falls and full moons rise  
And I love you  
It just comes natural..._

_- It Just Comes Natural, George Strait_

* * *

Booth stood under the shower stream later that night, letting the soapy lather suck up the grime of the last twenty-four hours. Since no men actually lived in Lydia's house, his only choices for body wash were all of a decidedly feminine variety. He went with the most androgynous of the scents—a brisk cucumber melon gel—and let the knots in his shoulders relax under the steady flow of hot water. He was barely aware of the sound of the bathroom door opening and closing, and really paid it no mind until a voice that was not his echoed through the small tiled room.

"So," she began, and he jumped in surprise, spastically clutching the sudsy pouf he wielded.

"Geez, Sarah Leigh," he huffed, tugging at the corner of the shower curtain to ensure absolute coverage. "I'm in the shower!"

"No, really?" she mocked, and he could hear her put down the toilet seat lid and park herself on the fuzzy cover. "I need to talk to you." He ground his teeth.

"Can't it wait until I'm done?" he asked.

"No," she said plainly.

"Why not?"

"Because I need to talk to you _alone_," she said, putting dark emphasis on the last word. Though in appearance she was far from intimidating—tall and thin like Charlene, he frequently heard the family teasing her by saying she ought to put rocks in her pockets for fear of the wind blowing her away—she could prickle the hairs on the back of anyone's neck with the tone of her voice. Even though he knew rationally that she couldn't kick his ass, that fear was still present.

"What about?" he asked hesitantly, wondering if this was something about Eric or the Armstrongs' murders. Did she know something she hadn't been forthright about?

"You kissin' on Temperance in the living room." He was glad he was behind the shower curtain so that she could not witness the variety of changes that occurred when she brought up that afternoon's event. He felt very vulnerable, standing not two feet from her in the bathtub while she sat on the toilet lid. There was a moment of silence, and he cleared his throat nervously.

"I, uh… well… what that was, was a, uh…"

"Did you mean it?" she asked. He sputtered, accidentally leaning forward into the shower stream and choking on a mouthful of water.

"Mean what?" he asked when he finally regained composure, and the ability to breathe.

"I mean, did it mean anything, or were you just lookin' to get some?" she clarified.

"To get… what?" he stumbled, trying to give himself time to think of an exit strategy. He didn't know what it was he felt or meant—that was part of the reason for the long shower, to give himself time to think about it privately. Whenever he was in the same room with Brennan, he felt like she could read his innermost thoughts as if they were being spelled out on a news feed over his head.

"Oh come on," Sarah Leigh said irritably. "Don't play that game with me, we both know she's hot and if you thought you had a chance, you'd take it. But is that all you're looking for, some cheap nookie to complete your Florida vacation?"

"I'd hardly call this a vacation," Booth grumbled.

"Don't get smart with me," she warned, and Booth knew if he could see her, she would be pointing a dangerous index finger at him. "I'm asking you a question. Is it?"

"No!" he said defensively. "No, that's not… it's not just…"

"It's just what?" There was another long, hanging silence as Booth tried to line up his thoughts and decide how best to word them. If they could even be put appropriately into words, or if they were of the utterly elusive variety of emotions that cannot be pinned by something as mere as the English lexicon. He was leaning towards the latter.

"It's just that I don't know how exactly things are going to play out," he said in a careful way. "I don't know how I feel, I don't know how she feels…"

"What do you mean, you don't know how she feels? Are you _that_ stupid? Are you blind?" Booth was surprised by the—was it anger?—in Sarah Leigh's voice. "For God sakes, you'd have to be to miss that. She loves you, Seeley. I mean really, really loves you. How the hell did you miss that?"

"I… what?" Booth stammered, completely thrown for a loop. "She said that?"

"She didn't have to," Sarah Leigh said. "Anyone with eyes can see it. She loves you, and if you think I'm gonna stand here for one second and let you take advantage of how much she loves you if you don't love her just as much…" It took a moment for Booth to realize what he was being accused of, and when comprehension dawned he found himself highly insulted.

"I'm not trying to take advantage of her," Booth said exasperatedly. "I could never do that."

"So you love her, then?" Sarah Leigh asked. Booth choked on his spit.

"What?" he asked. He heard Sarah Leigh stand up.

"I said," she began dangerously. "Do you love her?"

"I… well, I mean…" he stammered, feeling the L-word lodge in his throat like a piece of hard candy. Suddenly there was the _whoosh_ of the toilet flushing, and his shower water went from comfortably warm to scalding in less than a second. He yelped, leaping away from the boiling hot stream and nearly falling over out of the bathtub.

"What the hell was that for?!"

"Answer my question!"

"Sarah Leigh, seriously—" His plea was interrupted by another flush, which he was equally unprepared for. He let out another pained squawk, and someone banged hard on the door.

"Who's in there? Are you okay?" Mike asked through the door.

"We're fine!" Sarah Leigh shouted back.

"_We?_ Who's _we_?"

"Mind your own business!" Sarah Leigh shouted back. He muttered something indistinct and wandered off down the hall, and she turned her attention back to Booth.

"Now, we can keep playin' this game or you can answer my question. Do you love her?"

"Why does it matter to you anyway?" Booth asked, watching the skin on his arm and side turn a deep shade of pink.

"'Cause she's my cousin," Sarah Leigh answered, as if it were as obvious as the sun. "I'm not gonna let you go pullin' her around by her heartstrings if you don't really mean it. She don't deserve that, and if you're gonna be like that, you don't deserve her."

"That's not how it is," Booth explained through gritted teeth.

"So how is it, then?" she asked. He sighed.

"It's just… I do," he said, hardly loud enough to be heard over the water flow. "I do love her."

"Why haven't you told her?" she asked.

"Because," he said impatiently, wondering why he was having this conversation in this bathroom with this person. "We're partners. Professional, platonic, big black line partners."

"I don't know what that means," Sarah Leigh said, and Booth snorted.

"There's a professional line, when two people work together. You can't just cross that line. It would be…" He trailed off, gesticulating for the right word even though he was still behind the curtain and she couldn't see him.

"Would be what?" she asked. "What's so bad about getting with someone you work with? I hooked up with Larry, no harm, no foul."

"Sarah Leigh, you're a bartender," Booth said. "Your job isn't life or death, Larry isn't going to die if you mix a drink wrong. Bones and I have high-risk jobs, we put our lives on the line all the time. People in that situation can't have a romantic relationship; it clouds their judgment."

"Like she isn't clouding your judgment already," Sarah Leigh sniped.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked as he turned the water off. He went to reach for the towel, but she had already stuck her arm into the shower, holding it out to him. He grumbled his thanks as he took it.

"Well, like the other morning when you let her sit in on your meeting with those people at the lab," she pointed out. "What was it you said? That it was _legal enough_? You don't think bending the rules for her is a sign that maybe your judgment ain't as sharp as it used to be? Or when you went tromping through the woods last night, after a man with a gun and no sense left in his head, all because he put _her_ through hell? You don't think that was lacking a little somethin', like maybe good judgment?"

Booth wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped into the small bathroom, staring down at Sarah Leigh who sat cross-legged on the toilet lid with her arms folded across her chest. Her dark, messy curls framed her face, dusting her freckled shoulders, and she was giving him a very pointed look. At that moment she looked very much like a darker, narrower version of Brennan. He scowled at her, holding tight to the towel lest he add even more insult to injury.

"I… you… you're really frustrating, do you know that?" he finally said, unable to think up any logical counter-argument. She smirked and stood, crossing the tiny bathroom in two strides and resting her hand on the doorknob.

"The truth hurts," she said, looking down at his arm, which was bright red, as well as a splash on his side.

"No kidding," he muttered. Without another word she let herself out of the bathroom, shutting the door lightly behind her.

oOoOoOoOo

"What happened to your arm?" Brennan asked as Booth entered their room later that night, having just brushed his teeth. She sat propped up in Eleanor's bed, a magazine leaning up against her legs. It was the previous month's issue of _The American Journal of Physical Anthropology_, which she had already dog-eared and highlighted, but was obviously relishing a second time around. The skin that had been burned by the water was still pink, and hurt to touch.

"Nothing," he said, sliding into the other side of the bed carefully. She gave him a sidelong look before turning her attention back to the magazine, though she no longer seemed to be reading it.

They had been largely avoiding each other since their kiss that afternoon, after Lydia came banging in through the kitchen and unwittingly sent them flying to opposite ends of the couch like two teenagers caught "studying" by their parents. He'd spent most of the rest of the evening loafing around with Brennan's male cousins down by the dock, while she stayed inside and was harassed silently by her cousins and aunts with knowing looks, sideways grins, and occasional fits of laughter inappropriate to their present conversation. Aside from a few brief interactions, this was the first time they had sat down and spoken to each other since.

"Are you sure?" she asked, finally reaching out and pressing her finger against it. The skin was warm to touch and he winced under the pressure of her finger.

"I just burned myself in the shower, is all," he said evasively. "The water was too hot."

"You should check it before you jump in, you know," she chided, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and diving into her bag. She dug around for a minute, then pulled out a bottle of lotion, which she handed to him.

"Thanks," he said, gingerly rubbing the cool lotion on the burnt skin. It stung and tingled, but in a good way, and he set the bottle on the bedside table. They looked up at each other awkwardly, and Brennan pressed her lips together and focused all her energy on controlling the flush that threatened to creep up her cheeks. Trying to control a blush, however, is like trying to control the wind, so instead she set her magazine on the floor and pulled her pillows down, settling into bed and turning on her side facing away from Booth.

"I'm tired," she said as nonchalantly as possible. "I think I'm ready to go to sleep."

"Great," he said, in a way he hoped didn't sound too eager. The less discomfited conversation between the two of them, the better. After his forced revelation to Sarah Leigh, he felt like he had the words "I LOVE YOU" stamped across his forehead. He reached over and pulled the chain on the lamp, and the room went black save for the nightlight in the corner.

"Good night," he said into the dark, thankful for its cover.

"Good night," she responded.

"Hey, Bones?"

"Yeah?" Her voice was hesitant, and he gulped.

"Uh… good night."

"You just said that."

"Well, I really mean it. Have a good night." She snorted, and even that pig-like sound coming from her made him grin like a fool.

"You too," she said quietly.

He shut his eyes and tried to fall asleep, but couldn't. Not even the exhaustion of the day and the gentle metronome of her sleeping breaths could lull him to sleep. His entire mental capacity was fixed on what Sarah Leigh had brought up earlier—as much as he hated it, she was absolutely right. His focus _had_ changed. His priorities _had_ shifted. His judgment _was_ clouded. He wasn't the agent he used to be, and whether that was a better or worse thing he wasn't sure. He had never been shy about bending certain rules to make the ends justify the means, certainly, but before it had been in different ways.

Now, as Sarah Leigh had painfully pointed out, he was blatantly jeopardizing his safety and quite honestly risking his life, in situations that he could not blame entirely on his occupation. His motivations weren't purely professional, as much as he might pretend they were. His goals, his ambitions, his priorities, everything had shifted into a different light. It wasn't entirely for the job, for the justice, for the love of God and country. There was another kind of love there, one that motivated him to think harder, run faster, make better decisions. It also prompted him to take risks and skirt authority, should it be required to accommodate her. In some ways it had made him a better agent—as a team, they solved far more crimes than he ever could as an individual.

At the same time, though, he could not avoid the honest fact—he was less safe in the field with her now, than he would be alone. His attention was diverted; he was not thinking about himself anymore. He would think about her first and foremost, and never was that more apparent than the night he took a bullet to the chest. He had only been lucky enough to live.

He turned under the sheets, rubbing his face irritably. What was he getting at? What was the point he was making to himself? That he and Brennan shouldn't work together anymore? That wasn't it—he couldn't imagine working with anyone else, didn't think he could even do his job anymore without her by his side. So what, then? Was the line that supposedly kept them at a safe distance, actually putting undue stress on their relationship, and jeopardizing them both? Was the self-imposed restriction that was meant to keep them safe, actually endangering them?

Was it finally safe to love her?


	21. With a Little Help From My Friends

**A/N:** So I tried to post this last night, but the Document Manager was being a jerk and wouldn't let me... and all the kicking and shaking fists in the world didn't help, either (but thanks anyway Liz). We're finally getting back into the case, because I found an epiphanic note written to myself in the middle of the night telling me exactly how I was going to bring everything in this case into fruition. Isn't it nice when you write yourself notes like that? I always have a rough outline of my story - what I want to happen in the end - but never really a guide as to how to get there. Now the rest of my chapters are more or less 'guided', so you can expect faster updates. :)

Anyway, I'm going to stop babbling now and let you actually read the chapter. Just an FYI, all of the towns/cities in this fic that I have ever mentioned, in brief or at length, are all real places. Unlike some other states I have placed fics in, I know Florida very well, and I don't have to make up these little hick towns because they already exist! So with that, enjoy, and let me know what you think.

* * *

_I gave it everything I had and everything I got was bad  
Life ain't hard but it's too long to live it like some country song  
Trade the truth in for a lie, cheating really ain't a crime  
I'm giving up on love cause love's given up on me..._

_- Kerosene, Miranda Lambert_

* * *

The ride to Jacksonville in the morning was quiet, the radio DJs doing most of the talking. Brennan stared sleepily out the window at the passing scenery, while Booth remained a captive of his reeling thoughts. Thoughts about Brennan, and what yesterday might mean for their relationship. Thoughts about Eric, and whether or not Caroline would be able to get him off the attempted murder charges. Primarily, though, thoughts about Max, and what he had learned before his accident. That was what he wanted to find out today, more than anything.

With any luck, it would give them a fresh lead in a case full of dead ends and meaningless clues. Right now, they had nothing—a handful of twine, a few rifle shells, and a silver billfold with the initials "C.M." inscribed in the silver plating. No eye-witness accounts, except for Max's face-to-face with a shady character whose information may or may not even be legitimate. It was extremely frustrating to him—there were so few clues that he could see, and so little forensic evidence on the bodies. Bodies that Brennan wasn't even allowed to see, so the odds of a miniscule detail being passed over were doubly high. If anyone would find the bump or bruise that broke the case, it would be her, but she couldn't touch them.

"It's too clean," Booth said out of nowhere as the hospital came into view. Brennan turned slowly towards him, realizing that he was talking to her.

"What is?" she asked.

"This case," he said. "It's too clean—it's freaking squeaky. There's nothing to go on. A few rifle shells, that's it. All of the other evidence points up, it doesn't go anywhere." Brennan considered what he said for a moment, chewing the inside of her cheek.

"Do you think whoever was involved knew what they were doing?" she asked.

"What, you mean like a hire?" he asked. She shrugged.

"Possibly," she said. "Or someone who knows how to work a crime scene, so they would be aware of what to leave behind, and what not to leave behind."

"I dunno," he said as he pulled into the hospital parking garage. "If they had a background in crime scene investigation, why would they leave any evidence behind at all? Why not just clean it all up, leave no trace? Then we'd really have nothing to go on." Brennan shook her head, stumbling out of the SUV. Her legs had been pulled up underneath her in her seat, and now they were mostly asleep.

"I don't know," she said. "That's really more your area of expertise, the why." Booth grumbled something indistinct as they entered the cool, sterile building, taking the elevator several floors up to the SICU. They heard an info-tastic voice on the television peddling some useless household ware as they approached his room, Booth rapping his knuckles on the door before pushing it open. Max was seated upright in his bed, crushing a package of saltine crackers with his fist on the lunch tray while watching a commercial for a 40-in-1 blending/mixing/chopping/juicing/peeling/cooking/reheating device. He smiled when he saw them, ripping the package open and pouring the saltine sprinkles into his soup.

"I was wondering when you'd be back," he said to Brennan, who leaned in and pecked his cheek. "I guess you aren't mad anymore?"

"No, I'm not," she said.

"So Booth talked some sense into you, then?" he said. She frowned slightly and shook her head.

"No, actually it was Sarah Leigh, mostly," she explained, taking the chair by his bed. "And Molly. They illuminated certain aspects of human nature that I had neglected to take into consideration, and after careful examination I decided that you and Booth were right."

"Well damn," Max said. "I gotta give Sarah Leigh more credit, I never pegged her to be that smart."

"She is," Brennan said. "Not in an academic way, but in a… well, in Booth's way, I guess you could say."

"Street-wise," Max said. She nodded.

"That sounds right," she said.

"Well, now that we're all on the same page," Booth interjected, pulling the other chair across the room and parking it next to Max's bed, "you wanna tell me about what happened before you got shot? Your meeting with that contact of yours?"

"Right, yeah," Max said, slurping a spoonful of the soup and making a distasteful face. "Oy, that stuff is really terrible. Anyway, yeah, the meeting. Well, there's a little motel about two-thirds the way between Jacksonville and Green Cove Springs. It's past the bar Sarah Leigh works at, off the main road and about twenty miles on…"

"Right, right," Booth said, not needing a MapQuest step-by-step directory on how to get there. He was much more eager to hear the actual story.

"Okay, alright," Max said. "Anyway, he told me to meet him there, since it was out of the way and all. Said he was renting a room for some other business, and I could just go down there and talk to him. 'Course I know Ivan and people like him, so I went, you know, prepared. He didn't give me any trouble, though. Looked scared to death, to be honest."

"Did he know anything about what happened to the Armstrongs?" Booth asked. Max gave him an annoyed look.

"For Christ's sake, I'm getting there!" he said irritably. "Now, are you going to let me talk or keep interrupting me?" Booth pressed his lips together, and after a moment of silence Max smiled smugly and continued. "Anyway, he let me in and locked the door right away. Like I said, he looked real jumpy. There were a ton of guns laid out on one of the beds, probably fifteen or twenty of them. Apparently he sells them underground, to gangs and the like."

"Dad, that wasn't very safe," Brennan admonished. "He could've lured you into that hotel room just to kill you." Max shook his head.

"I know the guy," he said. "He's a little wily, but he's not a bad egg. Ivan's never killed a man in his life, couldn't do it if he tried. He just got caught up in bad business and doesn't know how to get out, is all." Booth opened his mouth as if he were going to encourage Max to cut to the chase again, but thought better of the idea and closed it. Max was a story-teller; he could never get to the point without setting up everything that happened beforehand.

"Were the guns related to the McVicars?" Brennan asked. Max shook his head.

"No, different set of low-lifes," he said. "They were on their way, so Ivan was real eager to get me out of there. He was quick about it, and not real detailed. He said from what he heard in the underground, the McVicars were definitely doing work in Florida, that they were paying big money for the right guys to do certain jobs. He said there weren't many opportunities and you didn't come to them, they came to you, usually through someone else, like an intermediary. They're untouchable. Can't trace 'em to anybody. I hear they all have assumed names, too, which I expected."

"Great," Booth said, throwing his hands up in the air. "So we still have nothing."

"Not so fast," Max said. "He did say that he knew, through a friend of a guy who knows his cousin, that one of the McVicar's intermediaries lives and works around here. He reports to them, and deals out their orders to the guys who do their dirty work."

"Did you get a name?" Booth asked, not allowing himself to be excited until he had a name and an address.

"Guy's name is Jack," Max said. "Didn't catch a last name, but Ivan says he's got a bait shop across the river, outside of Palmo."

"Where's Palmo?" Booth asked. Max shrugged.

"I dunno, never heard of it before in my life," he said. "But that's where this guy Jack has his shop, and that's where you can get more information about where and how the McVicars are operating."

"Anything else?" Booth asked, eager for all the information he could get. Max shook his head.

"After that, he looked at the clock and said I had to get out, that his 'business partners' were on their way. I cut out, and… well, you know how the rest of that day went."

"Max, I think Ivan knew what was going to happen to you," Booth said.

"How do you figure?" Max asked.

"Because Eric said the guy who cornered him in the bar—this C.M. card—said you'd be coming down the street in about thirty minutes' time. He knew where you were and when you'd be done. Seems like Ivan was told exactly when to let you go, so you'd be on the road at the right time." Max swore loudly, and his blood pressure spiked on the monitor.

"Son of a bitch," he growled. "And here I was thinking Ivan was an alright guy. I guess judgment's the first thing to go when you get old, huh?"

"Might not have been of his own volition, though," Booth said. "He was scared shitless, right? And you said yourself that everyone underground is connected… the McVicars probably used him as a means to an end, you know? If they knew you knew him, if they knew you were snooping around, they'd use someone you knew to get you where they wanted you."

"I don't doubt that," Max said. "Makes sense. Ivan was always a weak spine, he'd double-cross anyone if it meant saving his own skin. Besides, getting crossed by someone underground isn't exactly news. I should've expected it, I guess."

"Well, either way, he ended up helping us out," Booth said. "You lived to see another day, and if the info he gave you is good, it's a big lead for us."

"I hope so," Max said, rubbing his face in a tired way and sighing. "I'm getting too old to keep up with this game. There's a reason there aren't many con-men on Medicare." Max chuckled at his own joke, and Brennan put a hand on his arm.

"You look tired, dad. We'll go so you can get some rest." He smiled and nodded at his daughter, patting her hand.

"Okay, sweetheart," he said. "I could use some rest. Getting shot really takes a lot out of you. Booth, let me know if that lead gets you anywhere, alright?"

"Sure thing," Booth said, putting his chair back and opening the door for Brennan. "We'll see you around, Max."

"Be careful," Max said, and it was the first time in Booth's memory that the old man had ever said those words to them.

He and Brennan didn't speak again until they got into the SUV. She buckled her belt and turned to him as he cranked the ignition.

"So where to now?" she asked.

"Well, first off, we're going to Whataburger before I pass out," he said. "Then we'll see if my GPS can locate Palmo, Florida. We've got a bait shop to find."


	22. The Earth That Holds You

**A/N:** I just realized that I am 22 chapters into this fic, and it has only spanned 8 days in their world. Slow much? I have no idea how much longer this is going to be, being perfectly honest. I think less than 30 chapters, but I thought this would originally be less than 15, so we all know how good I am at guestimating. I haven't been hearing any complaints about the length though, so I don't think you really care. :)

Also, there is a character in this chapter who is based very closely off of someone dear to me. If you are the one person who knows the answer already, don't say it, but if anyone else wants to take a guess, feel free. There are some clues in the text that might help you out. Enjoy the chapter, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_I've been down  
Now I'm blessed  
Felt a revelation comin' 'round  
Guess it's right, it's so amazing  
Every time I see you, I'm alive..._

_- Inside Your Heaven, Carrie Underwood_

* * *

The GPS on Booth's SUV took them on a bridge across the St. John's River and down along the water's coast. There was, as far as they could tell, nothing to be seen—a few rural houses, large tracts of sandy pine scrub to their left and a gentle graduation to cypress and water oaks, then sand and water, on their right. The sun was positioned directly overhead them, partially obscured by passing clouds but still bright enough to reflect in broken fragments off the river water's surface. Every once in a while Booth flicked the wipers on the windshield; the humidity was so dense that water would collect on the glass and mar his view of the road ahead, which twisted unpredictably around bends in the river and clumps of dense trees.

"Look." Booth pointed through the windshield, and Brennan drew her eyes away from the placid river to the road in front of them. A lanky summer doe and her small, dappled fawn stood in the road, staring idly at them. Brennan's lips curled up into a smile as she eyed the fawn, on fragile, spindly legs, looking back at her with eyes nearly as big as its own head, awkward ears folded to the side of its skull. The mother's ears were perked, muscles stiff, staring at the stopped car several yards ahead of them. Finally she bent down and nudged the baby's tail with her delicate muzzle, urging him to cross into the safety of the woods on the other side. Booth and Brennan watched breathlessly as they disappeared into the underbrush, then turned to one another and smiled.

"Wow," she said quietly, still visibly awed by the simple yet enchanting encounter.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" he observed, lifting his foot off the brake and allowing them to roll on down the road. She nodded, thinking to herself that those deer might have been the most beautiful thing she had seen yet in Florida.

They drove quietly for a while longer, until Booth finally gathered up his courage and decided to take advantage of the easy mood and her inability to flee the confines of the moving vehicle.

"So," he began, summoning her attention.

"So?" The way she looked at him made him swallow loudly. Something flashed across her eyes, something that made him think she could sense his awkwardness even though that was not generally something she did, and it made him chuckle to himself.

"What?" she asked, drawing her brows together and smiling bemusedly.

"Nothing," he said, watching the first few drops release from the clouds overhead and splatter on the windshield. "I was just thinking about yesterday, is all." His stomach flopped as soon as he said the words, fearful for her reply (or lack thereof) and hoping she didn't throw the door open and chance a shoulder roll. Her expression tightened at the mention, but she quickly glossed over it with a look of cool unaffectedness, turning her gaze back to her window.

"Oh?" was all she said, obviously waiting for him to elaborate. He hated that part of being a guy—having to initiate these sorts of conversations, having to go first, having to wait patiently for her to formulate a response.

"Yeah," he said, everything he was going to say suddenly fleeing his mind. "Just, you know, thinking. It kind of… I don't know… it just…"

"Do you regret it?" she asked. The question surprised him.

"No!" he immediately responded, perhaps a little louder than he intended to, since everyone in St. John's County probably heard him even from within the vehicle. "No," he repeated at a normal volume, "I don't regret it, of course not. Do you?" She considered his question for a moment—an agonizing, stomach-twisting, palm-sweating moment—then shook her head.

"No, I don't," she said. And that was all she said. She didn't expand on her answer, didn't go off on some long-winded anthrobabble explanation about evolution and human sexuality and propagating the species, didn't say the words 'partners' or 'professional' or 'platonic', all of which Booth noticed at that moment started with the letter "P". She didn't do any of the things she normally did when they came even remotely close to touching the sexual nature of their own relationship. He didn't know whether that should bother or bolster him, and he wracked his brain for something intelligent to say.

"So… are you okay with it, then?" was what came out. He mentally smacked himself. Seriously? _Are you okay with it?_ What was that even supposed to mean? He felt like he did in high school, his tongue tied by a pretty girl he was trying to talk the panties off of, deep-seated Catholic guilt shoved into the far reaches of his mind for the time being. Only this time he wasn't trying to talk panties off of anybody, he was just trying to make his emotions and intentions known—something he was usually very good at. But he couldn't find the right words, the right way to express his concern and confusion and uncertainty. It wasn't her he was uncertain about—he knew he loved her, very much—but at the same time, it _was_ her he was concerned about. Her thoughts, her feelings, the things she did not habitually share with anyone else but were at the heart of what he was trying to get to.

His anxiety must have shown on his face, because she smirked her way, which was kind rather than condescending, and nodded.

"Yes, Booth," she said. "I'm 'okay' with it. In fact, I think I'm more than okay with it." He choked on his saliva, and she laughed. Once he was able to force air back into his lungs, he laughed too. The tension immediately dissipated as they were both reduced to near giggling hysteria, about something that wasn't even really that funny. It was more a laughter of relief than humor. They continued on that way, their chuckles finally subsiding several minutes later, and it was in that waning silence that the GPS announced: "YOU HAVE NOW REACHED YOUR DESTINATION."

What destination that was, Booth could not even begin to tell. From what he could see, nothing had changed. They were still closed in by trees on their left and a river on their right, mid-afternoon rain pouring down on them in buckets. There was no obvious civilization, and indeed if it hadn't been for the GPS telling them they were there, they would've driven straight through it.

Further along down the road they began passing a variety of dirt roads leading away from the county road, anonymous paths leading off to unknown designations.

"How do we know where to find it?" she asked, both of them leaning forward in their seats to peer down the crooked, unpaved paths. He shrugged.

"Maybe there'll be a sign," he said, hoping he would be right. He did not want to drive up and down each of these roads individually, searching for an unnamed bait shop.

"Jack's Bait and Tackle," Brennan said, pointing to a small wooden sign up ahead on their right. "That has to be it."

Booth nodded and turned down the road, which immediately hooked a left and wandered for a while before finding its way to the river's edge. The gravel parking lot, which could only accommodate a few cars, was so near the muddy bank that Booth feared if he parked too close to it the rain would raise the river and swallow his SUV completely. He parked on the far end, away from the river, the overgrowth of brush threatening to engulf the front half of the vehicle.

The shop itself was a ramshackle wooden structure with a severely rusted tin roof, hoisted several feet off the sandy ground by a variety of poorly-constructed stilts. It was so close to the river, Booth felt he could understand why the stilts were necessary—another half hour of rain like this and the building would've been engulfed otherwise. They darted through the rain and tripped up the porch steps, slick with green algae. A variety of tin signs and Christmas lights were strung on the inside of the front windows, cluttering them so heavily that they could not be seen through. Despite the rain, the front door was propped open with a messily painted rock, and they could hear a radio blaring from within. They shot each other wary looks, then bravely entered Jack's Bait and Tackle.

"_Said we got a hunnerd gallons a sweet red wine, made from th' biggest wartermelons on the vine…_" The voice was coarse, like someone who had spent a lifetime gargling gravel and battery acid. The inside of the shop smelled, predictably, like dead fish, with the deep bite of a long-time mildewing wood. Booth understood now why the door was propped open—it was, unbelievably, cooler outside than in the store. Somewhat quieter than the radio speakers and the singing was the sound of more than one fan circulating the stagnant, moist air around the shop, to no effect that Booth could notice.

"_Help yo'self to some, but obey the laaaw… drink, don't drive, do the wartermelon crawl!_" The music played on, but the singer became occupied with something else. Booth and Brennan made their way down the narrow pathway that cut through the low-ceilinged, almost suffocating store. Booth nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a scuttling on the revealed rafters overhead, even over the steady drumming of rain on the metal roof. He looked up just in time to see a bald tail disappear, and he shuddered. Rats. He hated rats.

They hit the back of the store and hung a left, towards the sound of the music. They had seen the register up front, but nobody was manning it. Whoever was in the store was in the back room, slamming around and singing unaffectedly over the pounding rain, the whirring fans, the blaring radio, and the gurgle of a rapidly rising river.

"Hello?" Booth called out, deciding to announce himself rather than startle the stranger by entering the back room. After having learned about Florida's castle law, Booth was hesitant to startle anyone here.

"Yeah! Hold on!" They heard the heavy thud of what was presumably a box hitting the ground, and a rattling of glass bottles within. They heard whistling, and finally a man came around the corner, wobbling slightly as he stood in the doorway, looking startled by their presence as if he had not just acknowledged them.

"Oh, hey," he said, giving them both peculiar squinty looks before finally offering his hand to Booth. It was grimy and the nails were bit down to the quick. "How y'all doin'?"

"Fine," Booth said. "Are you Jack?" The man nodded.

"Yessir," he said in the slow, lilting way Southerners do. "Jack Inslee, at your service. What can I do for ya?" Booth sized up the man momentarily before answering. He was tall and lanky, with elbows and hands that looked too big for his arms. His face was thin and his Adam's apple protruded from his stubbly neck. Dirty blonde hair sat like thatched straw atop his head, and it was short enough for Booth to see that the man was missing a chunk out of the top of his left ear. The man must've noticed Booth's eyes lingering on his misshapen ear, because he rubbed his index finger over it and chuckled.

"Raccoon, would you believe it?" he said, slinking past them and wandering up towards the front of the store, wordlessly beckoning the partners to follow. "Bit the whole chunk clean off, sonofabitch came outta nowhere. Ten stitches an' just as many rabies shots. Bring a gun with me now when I go campin'. So what can I help y'all with? Gear, bait?" Booth, who had been slightly disarmed by the raccoon story, cleared his throat.

"Actually, I'm a special agent with the FBI," Booth said, flipping his badge out. Jack squinted down at the badge on the counter, then his eyes widened and he balked away from it slightly.

"Look, about that liquor license, I swear I'm fixin' to get it…"

"Liquor license?" Booth asked. Jack's mouth hung open silently, then he raised his eyebrows and smiled in a sly, cat-like fashion.

"What liquor license?" he said, clapping Booth on the shoulder. "I ain't say nothin' about no liquor license. Who drinks liquor anyway? Bad for the soul." Jack winked at Brennan in what was apparently supposed to be a charming way, but only made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. "Now, what are y'all on about, then?"

"I was just wondering if you could tell me who this belongs to," Booth said, pulling the billfold out of his other pocket and placing it on the table, pushing it towards Jack with his index finger. Jack picked it up and considered it, turning it slowly and eyeing the inscription on the back, then shook his head.

"Nope," he said unconvincingly. "Never seen it."

"Are you sure?" Booth asked carefully. Jack paused, and Booth could see the dim lights flickering beneath his eyes, obviously analyzing his position. He then shrugged.

"Maybe," he said. "Might belong to a friend of mine. Mighta seen it once or twice before."

"Uh huh," Booth said, plucking the billfold from the man's grasp and repocketing it. "Does this friend have a name?" Jack pulled a cup out from underneath the counter and spat a vile looking brown lump into it—dip—before answering.

"Carl," Jack said vaguely. "Dunno his last name. Just a fella who comes in now and again."

"Wouldn't be McVicar, would it?" Booth asked. Jack froze, and Booth knew he had him pinned. The man's face was expressionless, his previously lazy amber eyes examining the agent with cold calculation.

"Could be," he finally said. "Dunno, really. Could be anythin'."

"I suppose it could be," Booth said coolly. "But I have information from a reliable source—" (Okay, so he stretched 'reliable' a little bit.) "—telling me that you work for the McVicars. Seeing as you know the guys, that makes it pretty likely to me." Jack pressed his thin lips together and blew air through his nose, in a way that suggested he was very seriously considering cooperation at this point in time.

"Alright, they come in now and then," he said in a low voice, barely audible over the downpour that still raged outside of the open door. "But I don't have nothin' to do with 'em, hear? They just bring me boxes an' money, an' tell me to give 'em to whoever comes askin'."

"What's in the boxes?" Booth asked. Jack shrugged, and this time it seemed genuine.

"Dunno," he said. "Don't ask. They pay me good money to shut up and do my job. No sense in lookin' a gift horse in the mouth, you know?" Booth nodded, and Jack rubbed his flat palm through his greasy hair.

"I ain't in trouble, am I?" he asked. Booth shook his head.

"No," he finally said. "I believe you. I'm not sure why," he added dangerously, "but I do." Jack let out a sigh of relief and pulled a Skoal can out from beside the register. He took a pinch out and stuck it between his bottom incisors and lip. "And that's why you're going to help us out." Jack nearly choked on the dip juice, spitting it messily into the plastic cup under the counter.

"Do what? I told you, I ain't in with them, I dunno what they got goin' and I don't ask!"

"Do you know when they're going to be coming in next with another package?" he asked. Jack rubbed the water out of his eyes from the choking incident, and shrugged.

"Eh…" he started, then wobbled under Booth's harsh glare. "Okay, yeah, maybe. Last I saw any of 'em was pro'ly a week or so ago. Dave swung by, left a big package, some guy came an' got it later that night. He said they'd be back in a week or two with somethin' else. That's the last I heard of 'em."

"Do you remember what the guy looked like who picked it up?" Booth grilled, but Jack shook his head.

"Nah, I didn't get a good look. Shorter, kinda big I guess. Just said he came for Dave's package, then he took it an' left real quick."

"You didn't recognize him?"

"No," Jack insisted. "No clue. Guy drove a truck, that's all I got."

"What color?" he asked.

"Didn't see it," Jack said. "Heard it. Diesel." Booth nodded, pulling the small pad of lined paper out of his back pocket and scrawling notes on it. _Packages, Dave, diesel truck, aprx. 1 wk ago._

"There's no chance of any forensic evidence being left from the truck," Brennan piped in, for the first time in a while. "The rain would've washed it all away by now."

"Great," Booth said, punctuating his notes with a heavy jab from his pen. "Alright Jack, this is how it's gonna go. You're not going to say anything to any of the McVicars about this conversation, you understand? If you do, I'll have you arrested for aiding and abetting in a criminal case, and operating without a liquor license. I'm sure if I dug around long enough, I'd find something else, too. Understand?" Jack spit into the cup and nodded, again watching Booth with lazy, uninterested eyes.

"Okay, good," Booth continued. "Now, I'm going to give you my personal phone number, alright? When the next package comes, you aren't going to give it to the person who comes asking for it. You are going to call me immediately, and I'm going to come pick it up. Got it?" Jack nodded again, taking the piece of paper Booth tore out of his notebook with his number written on it. The man opened the register and stuck it underneath the drawer.

"An' I ain't gonna get in trouble?" Jack asked again.

"No, you're not," Booth reiterated. "Not as long as you cooperate. But if I find out you sold us out to the McVicars…" Jack set his cup down and held his hands up.

"Hey, I'm an honest guy," he drawled. "I go to the highest bidder, and right now, that's you. I ain't goin' back to jail." Satisfied, Booth pocketed his notebook and turned to Brennan.

"You ready?" he asked quietly. She didn't think she could nod fast enough. "Great. See you around, Jack. Keep in touch." Jack waved them off and they left the oppressive bait shop, surprised by the wet chill left in the wake of the storm. They waded through ankle-deep water across the parking lot to the SUV, which was blessedly unharmed. Brennan was relieved to breathe in the clean, cool air of the A/C as Booth cranked the vehicle to life.

"Do you think he'll actually call?" Brennan asked as they pulled out onto the main road again. Booth shrugged.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I hope so. I think he was scared enough at the prospect of going to jail again to comply. I guess we'll see." Weak late-afternoon sunlight peaked through the oak and pine canopy as they drove alongside the swollen river, the haze from the storm not having fully cleared.

"You have a voicemail," Brennan observed, watching Booth's silent phone light up in the cup holder between them. He picked it up and dialed in, setting the phone to speaker so he could rest it in his lap and they could both hear.

"Seeley? It's me." It was Sarah Leigh's voice, and she sounded mildly hysterical. "I dunno where you are but you need to get your ass down here. They're chargin' Eric with killing Abby, Robbie, and Laura."


	23. The One Who Lived Inside My Skin

**A/N:** I am in a groove. It is a good groove. It is a writing groove. Enjoy, and let me know what you think, because it's all getting a little crazy (crazier?) from here.

* * *

_Justice is the one thing you should always find  
You got to saddle up your boys  
You got to draw a hard line..._

_- Beer For My Horses, Toby Keith_

* * *

Booth went as fast as the slick, winding road would safely allow, trying to get to the sheriff's office in Green Cove Springs as soon as possible. Brennan called Sarah Leigh back and got the fragmented details—Officer McGrady had called the house to tell them that they had charged the person responsible for the death of her cousin's family. When she asked who it was, he told her it was Eric. She told him he had lost his mind, but he assured her that they had 'very compelling evidence' in their favor. Beyond that Sarah Leigh was unable to elaborate, so Brennan told her they would be there soon and hung up, sighing frustratedly.

"What kind of evidence do you think they have against him?" she asked Booth as they crossed the bridge over the St. John's that would take them into Green Cove Springs.

"I don't know," Booth said. "If we couldn't find anything, I don't know what they could possibly have that ties him to the murder." The lights of the SUV flicked on as the sun began to move further west, dipping behind a row of slash pines. The sky burned pink and orange to the west, and darkened to a fuzzy blue-grey in the east. Between the two, just off highway 17, lay the sheriff's department, and beside it, the county jail. They parked in back of the jail, and in the modest lot they saw several vehicles they recognized.

Inside the jail lobby a collection of familiar people were arguing, crying, and just generally existing at a high volume. Aunt Judy and Lydia stood at the front desk, hollering into the face of the woman at the computer, who did not look even remotely fazed by their efforts. In a cluster of chairs Aunt Esther and Charlene flanked Molly, whose bloodshot eyes looked too stunned for words. Mike stalked across the small linoleum tract of floor in an uncharacteristically angry way, occasionally yelling something explosive and throwing their hands up in the air. His female twin handled her anger in a completely different way—her eyes blinked furiously, hands shaking as she held onto Molly's shoulder with one, and groped at her own knee helplessly with the other. Esther's oldest son John—the cavalier bachelor, the jokester, the closest friend Eric had in this world—sat in a corner chair with his head in his hands, not saying anything at all.

"You stay here," Booth said, stepping back towards the door. "I'm going to go to the sheriff's office and see if I can find McGrady and talk to him."

"What am I supposed to do here?" Brennan asked as Booth let himself out.

"I don't know, just… damage control," he said as the door shut, leaving her alone with her stressed relatives.

Booth walked across the grassy stretch that separated the jail from the sheriff's department, and let himself be led down the hall by an easily-startled front desk clerk back to McGrady's office. Through the shut door he heard the man whistling unaffectedly, and it made Booth's blood boil for reasons he could not exactly pin.

"Come in," McGrady shouted after the anxious clerk rapped her knuckles on the door for Booth before returning to her desk up front. Booth pushed the door open and found the heavy-set sheriff seated behind his desk, a variety of paperwork strewn across his desk. He looked up from the papers and smiled at Booth, lifting his chin slightly in acknowledgment.

"Oh, hey there, how ya doin'?" McGrady asked, setting the papers down and standing from his seat, offering his hand across his desk. Booth shook it briefly and without fervor; he was not in the mood for niceties.

"You charged Eric Holby in the Armstrong case?" Booth asked. McGrady nodded.

"Yessir," he said, looking pleased. "And we got you to thank for that, Agent Booth!"

"How do you figure?" Booth asked, knitting his brows.

"Well," the sheriff began, sitting back down in his seat and offering the one across the desk to Booth, who declined to take it. He preferred people address him from slightly beneath him—it gave him a physical 'upper hand', and made it more difficult for others to lie to him. Something about having to look further up at him made him more intimidating, he assumed. "After you arrested him for the attempted murder charge, we booked him and took his prints. Just for curiosity's sake, we ran his prints through our system, to see if we could match 'em to anything we had on file. We got one print match."

"On what case?" Booth asked.

"Sean Anderson," McGrady said gravely. "Prints along the outside of his car were a perfect match."

"Wait," Booth said. "The report you gave me on Sean Anderson's file said that there were no fingerprints retrieved from the scene. No prints, just the shell in the grass by the car." McGrady's face now showed signs of confusion.

"You sure?" McGrady asked. Booth nodded—he was definitely sure. McGrady hoisted himself out of his seat, and motioned for Booth to follow him. The sheriff lead the agent down the hall to a back room—a room full of tall cabinets, containing files and boxes full of evidence on various open cases in the county—and tracked down the A's. He pulled out a permanent file labeled _ANDERSON, SEAN M._ and handed it to Booth. Booth carefully flipped through each page, increasingly disturbed by what he saw.

Nothing was the same. This case file had completely different evidence, including fingerprints from the outside of the vehicle and a witness's account of a tall, heavily built white male fleeing the scene. In the account of the crime scene Booth had been given there were no witnesses, and no evidence aside from the single rifle shell.

"Wha…" Booth began, completely taken away by what he held in his hands. "This is not what you gave me."

"I dunno what you're talking about," McGrady said plainly. Booth felt his insides writhe—in anger, in repulsion, in something he couldn't put a label on.

"This! This case, this file, this is not the same file you gave me for Sean Anderson last week. This is completely different." McGrady pressed his lips together and shrugged his shoulders.

"Agent Booth, I don't know what to tell you," he said. "I gave you everything we had. Maybe y'all lost the papers somewhere along the way?" Booth shoved the file into McGrady's arms.

"I don't lose anything," he growled. "Make me a photocopy of this, _all _of this." McGrady's face darkened but he did as he was asked, copying each page carefully for the agent and paperclipping them together. He handed the stack of papers to Booth, refiling the Anderson file.

"Anyway, you can see as well as I can; it's pretty clear the prints link Eric Holby to the Anderson murder. Eye witness description matches him, fingerprints put him there, whole nine yards. And your folks are the ones who matched the shells at the Anderson murder to the ones in the Armstrong case, so I think it's pretty safe to say we got 'im."

"Do you have the murder weapon?" Booth asked. McGrady waved it off.

"We will," he said confidently. "I sent my boys out to toss his place; they'll find it."

"Do they have a search warrant?" Booth asked. McGrady gave him an icy look.

"Of course, Agent Booth," he said. "We do it all by the book here, don't you worry. I just think it's a damn shame that a man kills his own family like that, in cold blood…"

"In cold—what? No, it's bigger than…" Booth stopped abruptly, carefully calculating the look on McGrady's face as he listened to him speak, and suddenly changed gears. "I mean, I would think it'd be bigger, you know? Wouldn't you?" McGrady eased and shook his head.

"Now look, Agent Booth," he said in a fatherly way, clapping the agent on the back as he lead him towards the front lobby. "I know y'all up at the FBI got all kind of fancy training in conspiracy theories and organized crime, but this is Clay County. This ain't a big city, we don't get that kind of stuff down here. It's sad, but this is just one sick sonofabitch, and you can't do nothin' about that but lock him up and hope for the death penalty." The words _death penalty_ cut through Booth like a chill wind, but he pressed his lips together and nodded his head.

"I guess so," he said airily as they reached the front entrance. McGrady shook his hand and smiled warmly.

"Great," the sheriff said. "Well, I'm sorry we had a little misunderstanding there, but you know how things get when one office is tryin' to work with another. Mistakes get made, things get mixed up. But it's all fine now—we got 'im, it's over, y'all are free to go back to D.C." Booth nodded, but inwardly felt that it would be a while yet before he was able to return home.

"Thank you," Booth said, holding up the hand with the file. "I'll just send this up to my people so they can get their records straight." McGrady nodded and waved him off, and Booth left, shaking his head and taking quick, angry strides through the dark back towards the jail.

When he approached the jail lobby, Brennan was sitting on the curb outside the doors with Sarah Leigh, who Booth could see from a distance gesticulating angrily as she talked. Her voice carried all the way across the pavement, and its tone resonated with the way he felt at the moment. Angry.

"Hey, what happened?" Brennan asked when he got close. He shook his head.

"Not now," he said. "When we get home."

"That bad?" she asked, rising to her feet. Sarah Leigh stood too, watching Booth's facial features carefully. He nodded.

"Pretty bad," he said. "But I don't want to talk about it here. Let's just… let's just get everyone home, then we'll deal with it." He waited outside with Sarah Leigh while she re-entered and explained to the family what was going on—what little she knew, anyway. He looked over at the woman on his right, who was still watching his profile. She was in short shorts and a t-shirt, wrapped in someone else's oversized hoodie. She swept a curl out of her face as she chewed on her thumb cuticle, watching Brennan through the glass doors as she got everyone up and moving.

"He didn't do it, did he?" Sarah Leigh asked quietly. Booth shook his head.

"No," he responded, voice gritty. "No, he didn't."

oOoOoOoOo

Everyone reconvened at Lydia's house, filling her living room with a dark electricity that reminded Brennan of the way the house was when she first arrived, before she knew any of them. Now she was part of that electricity, part of that ripple of discontent spreading through the group. It crackled through her just as much as it did them—she was them now.

"What's going on, Seeley?" Lydia asked after Booth had sent John and Mike on their way. "Where are they going?"

"They're going to get Mema and the kids," he said. "I don't want them alone out there. I don't want anybody alone anymore, you got it?" His voice commanded attention, and they listened quietly to his ominous demand. "Molly, right now the cops are at your house, doing God knows what. They claim they're tossing it for evidence, but I don't know." They watched him pace across the small living room in front of the television as he tried to gather his thoughts.

"Bones, go get me the original file they gave us for Sean, will you?" he asked, and she complied quickly. She brought it out of the back room and handed it to Booth, and he took both sets of files over to the dinette table. The family congregated around the table as he laid out the pages from both sets.

"These match," he said, pointing to the cover sheet with all of Sean's basic identifying information, and the autopsy results. "But everything else is different. The record of evidence, the witness testimony, none of that was in the original file."

"You think they made it up?" Sarah Leigh asked, now chewing anxiously on the sleeve of the borrowed jacket. Booth made a growling noise as he screwed his eyes shut, unable to answer that question. He didn't want to think that—he wanted to have faith in law enforcement, in officers who took up the badge and gun and the oath to protect and serve. But what could he make of what was in front of him, other than the worst?

Brennan picked up the autopsy results—photocopied notes from the coroner, sketches of injury and other bodily marks on the generic human outline—and traced the page with her eyes as Booth grappled with his thoughts. He heard her take in a sharp breath.

"Booth," she said, long and slow, the way she did when she was in the middle of realizing something. His head snapped up and he looked at her.

"What?" he asked hesitantly. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the two pages, faster and faster.

"Charlene," she suddenly said, turning around. "How do you spell Maya's name?"

"M-A-Y-A," she said. "Why?" Then Booth could see it—the dawning comprehension on her face, the way it lit up as if she had just found a miniscule mark on a bone fragment. These were her bone fragments tonight.

"Did Sean have her name tattooed on his upper left arm?" Brennan asked. Charlene nodded.

"Yeah, right across it." The room was still, everyone watching Brennan's face intently. She looked up at him.

"Booth, look," she said, pointing to the tattoo indicated on the man's left upper arm. "This is the original one they gave you, and this is the one they gave you tonight," she said, holding up the other sheet. "Tattoo across the upper left arm on both sheets… M-Y-A."

"So they misspelled her name," he said, not seeing the relevance. "There are a lot of ways to spell 'Maya'." Brennan shook her head vigorously.

"No, Booth, coroners don't just 'misspell' names on tattoos," she insisted. "You've seen Cam work; coroners are meticulous, especially about tattoos. Sometimes a tattoo is the only real identifier on a body—if they don't get it just right, it could be the difference between identifying someone or not."

"You can't hold everyone to Cam's standard," he argued.

"I can if the autopsy result sheets are signed, stamped, and dated for _two different dates_," Brennan said. Static crackled through the room, and Booth snatched up the pages. Sure enough, not only was the name misspelled, but each one was officially signed and stamped on a different date.

"Does that mean one of them is a fake?" Lydia asked.

"It means they are both considered invalid," Brennan concluded. "It means the official records have been breached, and nothing in this file can be considered veritable."

"What now?" Molly asked, the first thing she had really said since they arrived from the jail. "What does that mean?"

"It means that with a little help from Caroline, we can get everything here thrown out," Booth said, rubbing his face with his hands in a dogged way. "It means we'll have to contact Dr. Simpson and see the _real_ autopsy report on Sean Anderson. And it means I'm launching a full-scale investigation on that sonofabitch McGrady and the Clay County Sheriff's Department."


	24. Love Lockdown

**A/N:** Okay, so I fell out of my groove. My Muse ran off and took all possibility of me writing another chapter of this fic with her. I did manage to get a oneshot penned down, but it was not B/B centric and as a result not many people read it. :) That's okay, you're all gluttons for fluffy B/B lovin', I get it. Anyway, after recent unsavory events my Muse finally came back around to console me and help me write this chapter, so here it is. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_When someone in the dark reaches out to you  
And touches off a spark that comes shining through  
It tells you never be afraid_

_Then somewhere in your heart you can feel the glow  
A light to keep you warm when the night winds blow  
Like it was written in the stars I knew  
My friend, my someone in the dark was you..._

_- Someone in the Dark, Michael Jackson_

**Rest in Peace  
1958-2009**

* * *

Nobody slept that night. They pretended to sleep—some changed into pajamas and laid quietly in the dark, listening to the battle of cricket and cicada calls outside their windows, while others simply paced behind closed doors—but nobody slept.

After John and Mike had returned with Mema and all of the kids, Booth separated them into camps. The closest house to Lydia's was Esther's next door, only a few hundred yards down the river. Molly and her kids, Sarah Leigh, Booth and Brennan, and Charlene, Maya, and baby Bethany would stay with Lydia, while the rest would spend the night at Esther's. Nobody was to leave either house alone, for any reason. They could not as much as step outside to smoke a cigarette without a partner, for safety's sake, and if at all possible no woman should go outside without a man. Brennan and Sarah Leigh both snorted discontentedly at that addendum, but Booth gave them a stern look that quieted them. This was not a game—too many people had already died, and they didn't know who was next, or when. The closer you get to the root, Booth said, the more dangerous things become, so they had to play it safe.

Brennan laid on her back in Eleanor's bed, listening to the silence of the otherwise-empty room. Booth had left to go "take care of something"—what it was he wouldn't say, and when she tried to follow him out the door he stopped her. _You need a partner,_ she pointed out, highlighting his own recently implemented rule. He patted the gun that was rarely apart from his hip. _I have one,_ he said. Then he left, SUV disappearing quickly into the oppressive dark that loomed just beyond the reach of the outdoor lights. She hated when he went all "lone ranger" on her, insisting on doing the most dangerous tasks by himself. Didn't he realize he was safer with another pair of eyes and ears?

Frustrated, she rolled out of bed, her feet hitting the springy carpet silently. She had not bothered to change out of her day clothes; she knew she wouldn't sleep anyway, and if Booth needed her to be somewhere fast, better to not have to waste three minutes changing out of pajamas. She slipped into the dark hallway and wandered into the living room, where Sarah Leigh was predictably awake, skin awash with the pale blue light of the muted television as she sat up on her pull-out bed. She also wore the previous day's clothes, and from behind Brennan could see her gnawing on her fingers without thought. Apparently Charlene wasn't the only one with a nervous habit.

Brennan approached the edge of the bed, and when Sarah Leigh scooted over and patted it, she took a seat on the lumpy mattress, leaning into the pile of pillows her cousin was using to prop herself up. Neither of them said anything, watching a silent rerun of _Everybody Loves Raymond_. Debra gestured at Ray silently, yelling something neither of them could hear, and while it may have been funny, they wouldn't have laughed even if they had heard it. They were both on edge, as if waiting to be called to duty. They were expectant, without knowing what to expect.

Sarah Leigh flinched as she tore a small piece of skin from the edge of her thumb nail, and a spot of dark blood sprung up against her finger. Without being aware that Brennan was watching her, she kept right on gnawing, moving to the next finger. One of the dogs let out a lone howl, and they both jumped out of their skin. Sarah Leigh sighed and pressed her face into her hands briefly, before vigorously rubbing her eyes and turning to her cousin.

"This is making me nuts," she whispered, crossing her arms over her chest. "I feel like we're just sittin' around with targets on our backs." Brennan knew what she meant—ever since Booth had separated them into camps they felt vulnerable, even though they were all together and hypothetically there was safety in numbers. It was as if he had made their danger more real by helping defend them against it, the way a Geiger counter makes someone acutely aware of radioactivity they cannot see.

"I know," Brennan said. "But objectively, we are in no greater danger tonight than we've been in any other night. We are just more aware of the danger we've been in all along." Sarah Leigh scoffed before she could stop herself.

"Oh, that makes me feel better," she said. She grabbed her index cuticle between her front incisors, and Brennan reached up and grabbed Sarah Leigh's wrist, locking her fingers around it.

"Stop," she said. "You're going to damage your…"

"Mind your own business," Sarah Leigh said, pulling her hand out of Brennan's grasp. "They're my fingers; I'll chew 'em off if I want." She did, however, settle both hands in her lap and turn back towards the TV. Together they continued to watch the bright screen, silent sitcom actors solving all their problems in thirty-minute segments, too caught up in their own thoughts to even wonder what was being said.

oOoOoOoOo

There was something that Booth found almost drug-like about nighttime driving. He loved to drive in general—he liked being in charge, controlling the situation, being a man—but late at night was absolutely the best time for it. He would turn the radio off and just listen to the road noise, hands resting easily on the wheel, watching the swath of light cut out in front of him by the headlights. He could be alone with his thoughts, alone with the world. Sometimes, driving at night in a rural area like this, where one might go miles without seeing as much as a streetlight, he felt like the last man on earth, or the first. Like he was Adam, alone with God. It was a peaceful feeling for him, and he needed peace right now.

He crossed the bridge from Green Cove Springs to the opposite shore, and began to trace that afternoon's familiar path. Well, really it was the previous day's afternoon now, since the clock in the car read just past twelve-thirty AM. The moon was new, and the river beside him was dark, untouched by any real source of light. It had a steady pulse, a quiet hum as bodies of water are wont to, like a creature in the dark.

Before long he stumbled upon the cluster of dirt roads, indistinguishable from one another in the darkness. He turned just beyond the wooden sign, trying to drive as quietly as possible down the pitted road. The bait shop's windows were dimly lit, outdoor floodlights illuminating the front porch. The screen door swung open idly in the riverfront breeze, sticky against Booth's face as he parked and stepped out of the vehicle. He looked down at the bright phone screen in his hand at the text he had received an hour earlier—"its here." The number was not one he recognized, but he knew immediately who had sent it and what it meant.

He rested his hand on the gun holstered at his hip as he approached the door, creaking and banging against the side of the building in the breeze that picked up off the water's surface. He could hear the radio playing in the back of the store, badly tuned and fuzzy. He vaguely recognized the Lucinda Williams tune, and did not know where he knew it from or why.

"_Just another one night stand, just another man to forget…"_

The only light in the building came from a buzzing fluorescent bulb behind a cracked cover, hanging above the register. Jack was not at the register—in fact, Booth didn't hear the man at all. No singing, no whistling, no shuffling footsteps, no clinking bottles. He drew out his weapon, holding it at his side and quietly passing through the center of the store, peering down each of the aisles one by one. He felt alone in a bad way, and it made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

This is why he had not wanted Brennan to come with him—late at night in the middle of nowhere, with nobody you could trust to call on for help if something terrible happened? Technically they were in St. John's county now, with a police force not tangled in scandal, but if they were in trouble it would take at least an hour for anybody to find them. It was better she wasn't there, better she not be at risk. There was too much to lose.

Suddenly Booth heard a sound from the back of the store, almost like a growl. Booth held the gun in front of him, backing up against a shelf of lures to protect himself from behind.

"Jack?" he called out, voice strong and steady despite the clenching feeling in his gut. No response. There was silence, and he strained his ears to catch anything beyond the radio's static warbling.

"… _how can it feel so wrong today, when it felt so right last night?"_

Suddenly he heard it again, only this time it was more guttural, almost a gurgling sound.

"Jack? Are you there?" No response. He looked over his shoulder briefly, then continued down the narrow path between aisles to the far back of the store. The deep throaty sounds were coming from within the back storage room, which was lit. There was a sputtering cough, and Booth knew immediately from the choked sound that he was either going to walk in on an attack, or the aftermath of one. He swiftly rounded the corner with his gun out, ready for either.

oOoOoOoOo

At Lydia's house, Brennan was almost asleep on the couch, head leaned back into the mound of pillows, eyelids fluttering open and shut. As much as she struggled to keep them peeled, there was something about the lull of the refrigerator and Sarah Leigh's even breaths next to her that was almost hypnotic. On screen, Billy Mays tossed a Kaboom biscuit into a toilet and gestured cheerfully as copious foam coated the inside of the bowl.

Her eyes cut over to her cousin. Sarah Leigh had stopped attempting to keep hers open after _Everybody Loves Raymond_ switched over to informercials, and looked to be peacefully asleep. One hand lay on her stomach, while the other rested on her chest just beneath her chin, thumb still lingering near her mouth. Between her fingers, her Nicorette gum, and her insatiable appetite, there was always something in her mouth. Sweets, if he ascribed to the Freudian psychosexual stages, might say that she had an oral fixation, even an oral sadistic personality. Brennan, of course, did not believe in such things. The concepts were too soft, not rooted in enough science to make them worth her time.

Outside a dog bayed, and Sarah Leigh's eyes snapped open very suddenly, as if she had been awake the entire time. They both waited tensely, and within a few seconds another bark rang out, the two distinct animals sounding off together in the front yard. They rose from the couch and walked into the kitchen, peering through the blinds that covered the window above the sink. They heard a distant rumbling of wheels down the unpaved road, though they could not see any headlights. The grinding of tires came to a halt somewhere down the driveway, though the brightness of headlights never appeared. Brennan felt her stomach churn—something wasn't right about this.

"What the hell…" Sarah Leigh said, giving voice to Brennan's uneasy thoughts. They squinted into the darkness as the dogs continued to bark. As they ran in front of the motion-activated floodlights they illuminated the front yard—cars parked idly, bugs swarming, dogs with raised hackles, erect tails, perked ears, snapping their jaws into the night. In the house Buckshot had joined them in the kitchen, whining impatiently at the door, pawing it with his heavy feet.

There was a rustling in the underbrush that the driveway cut through, some thirty yards away from the house, and the two outdoor dogs charged the bushes. They disappeared into the woods, and then they heard it—_crackcrackcrack_. Three shots, echoing through the silence and amplified by the quiet waters behind the home. Sarah Leigh spun around and reached up into a cupboard over the oven, digging around until she found what she was looking for. When she withdrew her hand, she was holding a smallish 9mm revolver in her hand. Brennan was only slightly surprised as she watched Sarah Leigh unlock the child safety lock and pull a box of ammo out of the drawer next to the sink. She swiftly loaded three bullets into the chamber, rolling it until it clicked.

"You're not going out there," Brennan said sternly, displeased by the apparent crack in her voice as she spoke. She reached out to grab Sarah Leigh's arm as she strode towards the door, but the young woman shook herself loose.

"That sonofabitch killed Abby," she said through gritted teeth. "He killed Robbie, he killed Laura, he killed Sean, he killed Uncle Frank."

"We don't know it was the same person," Brennan tried to argue. Sarah Leigh shook her head.

"Doesn't matter," she said, trying to push the dog away from the door as she fiddled with the lock. "They're all connected, it all comes back to the same group. Same people that killed your mom, too," Sarah Leigh pointed out. "Who's gonna be next? You? Me? Ellie? I ain't waitin' to find out. God helps those who help themselves, Tempe. I've been waitin' for too long for someone else to help me."

oOoOoOoOo

Booth stepped into the back room, gun held in front of him. He immediately dropped it when he saw Jack's tangled body on the ground. He was surrounded by broken bottles of whiskey and gin, glass shards glittering on the soaked wood floor. His body was drenched in the liquor and a copious amount of blood, both glistening on his dirty skin like a glaze in the light of the bare bulb dangling from a chain overhead. The gurgling came from a shot straight through his neck, a clean hole that bubbled crimson with each strained gasp. Surprisingly, the man was not dead yet.

"Shit," was all Booth could say, carefully treading around the broken glass and crouching down next to the battered man. From what he could tell, it looked like the bottles had been smashed on him after he was shot, for the cuts and emerging bruises on his face and arms. Jack opened his mouth as if to speak, but blood trickled from the corners of his lips, and Booth shook his head.

"Don't," he said, flipping his phone out and dialing 911. He knew it was too late, he knew that by the time the ambulance got there Jack would be dead—he might even die before the dispatcher was able to locate them via his cell phone signal. But he dialed anyway, if only to give the man some encouragement to hold on; even if only long enough to reveal the identity of his attacker.

"Who did this to you?" Booth asked as the emergency dispatcher triangulated his location via satellite. "Was it the McVicars?"

Jack didn't speak, but shook his head in a spastic way that was neither yes nor no, oozing out of the hole in his neck. He gasped for air, wheezing through the opening in his throat and choking on another gush of blood. He was drowning—he was going to drown on his own blood. He coughed and his eyes rolled back into his head as he strained to inhale, gurgling like a drain.

"Jack, stay with me," Booth encouraged, putting his hand on the man's shoulder. "Who did this to you?" Jack's eyes were now wide open, nearly bulging out of his head, fixed on Booth's face unblinkingly. He reached up in a final act of strength and grabbed Booth's upper arm, squeezing it weakly.

"Sssss…" He made a faint hissing noise, trying very hard to articulate himself but fading fast. His skin was parchment white, stubble on his chin dark and dirty against it. Booth's brows furrowed together—what did that mean? What was he saying?

"What? What does that mean?" he asked almost hysterically. His biggest break, his biggest lead in finding the killer that had terrorized Brennan's relatives, was dying right in front of him. With him would die that knowledge.

"Snake," Jack murmured, eyes closing, hand losing grasp of Booth and falling to the floor. The blood stopped burbling up through the hole in his neck, and he stopped heaving for air. He just stopped.

oOoOoOoOo

Sarah Leigh forced the door open, nearly tripped by the dog as he barreled out into the yard, snarling and snapping at the air as he charged the bushes. Before Brennan could stop her Sarah Leigh was out the door too, gun held in front of her, yelling something indistinct. Brennan stepped into the doorway and looked out just in time to see a figure emerge from the brush, arms stretched in front of it. She had seen enough armed criminals to know what that meant.

The next few seconds were a blur. A shot was fired from the woods, gun flaring bright for a split second in the empty darkness. Brennan heard a ping that told her the bullet had ricocheted off of one of the vehicles, and she instinctively stepped back into the kitchen behind the relative safety of the wall. She heard several more shots fire, a loud snarl, and what sounded like a male screaming in pain. Another bullet fired, and a sharp yelp punctuated the dense air.

"No!" Brennan felt her entire body go numb when she heard Sarah Leigh's shriek, followed immediately by one more shot. Not far from the open kitchen door she heard a heavy thud, and then nothing. Absolutely nothing. No guns, no barking, no screams. Utter silence. Brennan rounded the edge of the door to look out into the yard, and felt her chest cave in.

Sarah Leigh lay in a crumpled heap in the grass. She did not move.


	25. Shines to Light the Way for Me

**A/N:** You will probably not like this chapter, because it does not offer much in the way of resolving what happened at the end of the last. But it's important, and soon enough you will understand why. All things in time. :) Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_So much pain and so much darkness  
In this world we stumble through  
All these questions I can't answer  
So much work to do..._

_- When I Get Where I'm Going, Brad Paisley feat. Dolly Parton_

* * *

Brennan slipped through the heavy wooden door into the hospital chapel, taking due note of the sign asking for quiet. The door clicked behind her, closing her into the small, low-ceilinged rectangular room. The name "interfaith chapel" was deceptive, as it wasn't really a chapel at all, but a quiet room set aside with four rows of plastic chairs and a step-up podium in front. The walls were decorated with a variety of religious symbols—the crucifix, the Star of David, an Islamic crescent moon, a Bahá'í nine-point star, an ohm—and along the back of the podium was an assortment of fake flowers. The smell of hospital sterility and the nearby food court was sealed out of the chapel, and something musty and slightly floral hung in the air.

She sat on the end chair in the farthest back row and folded her hands in her lap, staring up at the empty space in the front of the room. She didn't know what she was doing there—she didn't believe in God, didn't have anyone to pray to even if she knew how to pray. Her parents were never particularly religious people, and only took her and Russ to church on holidays out of habit. Her memories of church then were scattered and indistinct—patent leather shoes rubbing the backs of her heels, itchy white tights, Russ yanking on tendrils of her hair out of boredom and their father hissing very un-Christian sounding warnings in their ears for if they didn't stop their behavior. They ate tasteless wafers and drank grape juice on Christmas, and nobody had ever bothered to explain to her why. It was meaningless to her; the entire thing had no point whatsoever.

But one thing this particular room in the hospital did have over all the others was silence. There were no monitors beeping, no doctors and nurses shuffling around with laden charts and somber faces, no sobbing family members begging for answers and updates. This room was quiet. This room was peaceful, in the sort of drab, pastel, aged way that your grandmother's sitting room is peaceful. She could be alone with herself, alone with her thoughts, and that gave it a distinct advantage. Also, if they came looking for her, they would never think to look there. It was the perfect hiding place.

She heard the door behind her click as it opened, and tensed. Turning around, she saw only a man, one she wouldn't know from Adam, and let out a relieved sigh. Had it been one of her hysterical family members, she didn't know what she would have done. She really needed some time to herself. Brennan turned back towards the front and looked down at her upturned palms in her lap, tracing the lines like a highway map.

The man took the seat across the aisle from hers, slouching back into the plastic chair like he hadn't sat down for days. His head hung, chin resting on his chest, and his thumbs were hooked in the belt loops of his black slacks. His white collared shirt was wrinkled, as if he had slept in it, and the shaggy brown hair that hung to his ears flipped out in every direction. He looked a bit like a disheveled teenager, only he couldn't have been a day younger than thirty. He must have felt her eyes on him, because he lifted his heavy head and smiled at her in an almost apologetic way.

"It's been a long couple days," he offered in explanation, shoulders sagging as he spoke. His face was full but his eyes sunk in, dark circles apparent beneath them. They were hazel and kind, though tired, and even though Brennan did not know this man and wanted mostly to be left alone, she felt for him.

"I know the feeling," she said, mimicking his lean back into her chair and crossing her arms over her chest. The man laced his fingers over his abdomen and turned slightly in his chair so that he could better face her, legs stretched out in front of him in a relaxed sort of way.

"Is there anything on your mind you'd like to talk about?" he asked. She furrowed her brows at him, and he laughed. "I'm sorry, I didn't really introduce myself. I'm Reverend Reid, I'm one of the chaplains here at the hospital. You are?"

"Temperance," she said, taking the hand he offered her and shaking it briefly. "Temperance Brennan."

"It's nice to meet you, Temperance," Reverend Reid said. She nodded.

"And you," she said. "It's a little early for a service, isn't it?" she asked, noting the watch on her wrist that told her it was three-thirty in the morning. He chuckled again, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms.

"It is," he agreed. "My morning service isn't until seven, but sometimes I can come here and get a nap in when things quiet down a little." He patted the pager that was clipped to his hip.

"You're on call?" she asked. He nodded.

"I am. They like to have a chaplain around the hospital at all hours. People don't stop getting hurt and dying just because it's late. A lot of families get pulled from their beds in the middle of the night when their loved ones are sick or injured, and sometimes they need somebody to help them spiritually during that rough time. That's what I'm here for." He was soft spoken, explaining himself quietly and gently, as if he were telling a child just why she shouldn't be afraid of things that go bump in the night.

"I suppose that makes sense," Brennan said. He nodded, then inclined his head up slightly, so as to look down his bumpy nose at her.

"So if you need anything at all, please don't hesitate to say so," he added.

"Oh, no," Brennan said, shaking her head. "I'm not… I don't believe in God." Something in her cringed involuntarily, the way Booth did whenever she said the words aloud, and the small part of her insides that wasn't writhing over Sarah Leigh's chances of survival clenched in anxiety over his whereabouts. Two hours ago she had called him, and he had picked up only long enough to ask if she was okay, and tell her that he would be there as soon as possible. Then he hung up abruptly, and she hadn't heard from or seen him since. Reverend Reid nodded, apparently unfazed by her revelation.

"I see," he said, slowly nodding. "Well, you can still feel free to talk to me, if there's something on your mind. God notwithstanding, I've been told I'm a pretty good listener." He gave her a slight grin—as much as he could seem to muster at almost four in the morning, running on only the fumes of sleep—and her brows knit together.

"That's it?" she asked.

"What's it?"

"That," she said. "_I see._ That's all?"

"I'm not sure I understand what you're asking," the Reverend said slowly, giving her a puzzled look.

"I just said I don't believe in God," she reiterated. "By which I mean that I deny his existence completely, in all forms."

"I heard you," he said.

"Doesn't that upset you?" she asked, almost impatiently. She normally wouldn't bother the man, but she felt anxious and irritable and above all extremely confused, and now even this stranger was acting outside of her expectations. Nothing was going according to plan. "Aren't you going to, I don't know, lecture me about my lack of faith, tell me that I'm going to burn in hell for eternity?" He smiled in a wry sort of way.

"Does it upset me that you don't believe in God? No." He paused, as if to gather his words like pebbles on the beach, then continued. "By upset, I assume you mean the kind of hot-headed, scandalized reaction you've come to expect from believers?"

"Yes," she said.

"Right. No, I am most certainly not upset," he said. "I am not upset with your individual decision not to believe in a God you cannot see, cannot touch. I understand that to many people, the entire idea seems a little crazy. Do I feel sadness for you, for not having that in your life? Of course. But I certainly respect your personal decisions in regards to your faith."

"I'm impressed," Brennan said, and she was. "I was expecting…"

"A crazy fundie Bible-thumper?" He grinned and she laughed, and it sounded foreign to her. When was the last time she had laughed? The past week had been filled with so much stress, so much anguish, so much deception and uncertainty, there hadn't been much time for laughter.

"Yes," she admitted. "I suppose that was poor of me, to judge you based on a stereotype. I should know better than that."

"Nobody's perfect, Ms. Brennan," he said.

"Doctor," she corrected.

"Medicine?"

"Philosophy. I'm a forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian Institute." He let out a low whistle.

"Well I'll be," he said. "What brings you down to Jacksonville?"

"Family," was the short answer. He nodded in an understanding way.

"I'm sorry to hear that someone you love is ill," he said. "I'm sure they appreciate you flying down all the way from D.C. to be with them." She sighed in a heavy way and nodded, her mind having been temporarily relieved of its anxious obsession but rapidly brought back to the present reality.

"Two, actually," she finally said. "My father and my cousin. They were both shot this week." His eyes widened and he shook his head.

"How terrible," he said, and he had a genuine quality about him that made her feel like he truly felt it was so. His words were not empty. "When someone we love is hurt, it's always painful, but when it is an act of senseless violence? It can be hard to wrap our heads around."

"Yeah," she said, nodding and staring down at the carpet beneath her feet. She sniffed loudly. "It… it is. She was standing right… right in front of me, talking to me, and the next minute she was…" She shut her eyes, pressing her thumb and index finger into the corners. She felt something nudge her knee, and looked down to see the reverend offering her a box of tissues retrieved from a nearby chair. She took one and nodded in thanks, dabbing the corners of her eyes.

"When it happens so suddenly, and we're right there with them, it can be easy for us to feel like we are to blame for what happened," he said wisely. She pressed her lips together.

"She was right there," she repeated, almost wistfully. "Right there. I told her not to go out, but she just… she went and I didn't stop her. I didn't stop her and now she's dying. It is my fault." He dragged his chair into the aisle so that he could reach over and take her hand in his, shaking his head.

"It is definitely not your fault," he consoled. "You weren't holding the gun, and you said yourself that you told her not to go outside. You tried to stop her—you did your best. We are all individuals, and we all make our own decisions. If it had been you who was in her position, would you want your cousin to blame herself for your injuries?" Brennan thought for a moment, then shook her head.

"No," she admitted. "That would be… that would be irrational of her, to blame herself for something I consciously chose to do."

"Exactly," the reverend said, patting her hand. "The only person who can be held accountable for your actions is yourself, and the only person accountable for her actions is her. You didn't hold the gun, you didn't push her into harm's way. This isn't your fault."

"Can I ask you a question?" she asked the man, looking up at him. He nodded.

"By all means," he said, leaning back into his seat and threading his fingers together.

"If this God of yours supposedly exists, why does God let things like these happen to good people?" she asked. "Isn't the Christian God portrayed as a loving, compassionate, just Creator who is supposed to love and protect His creations? If God is so loving and cares so much, why do things like this happen?" The reverend let out a resigned sort of sigh, closing his eyes gently and nodding his head.

"That, Temperance, is possibly the biggest question in the Christian faith," he said. "And a very legitimate one. Why, if God loves us so much, does He let these terrible things happen? Why does he let good people get shot? Why do thousands of children starve to death every day? Why does AIDS wipe out entire villages, entire countries, and we can't find a cure? Why does such a horrible disease even exist on our planet, if God loves us so much? It's a big question, a heavy one, and one that I am not going to pretend I know the answer to. I don't. I don't know why these terrible things happen. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent lying awake at night, or sitting up in the early morning hours in church, wondering the same thing. Why."

"Then how can you believe?" she asked. "How can you predicate your entire life on unanswered questions? On something that doesn't make sense, that doesn't follow any rules, that you don't even understand? How can you walk blindly behind some supposed higher power that has basically left you to fend for yourself?" The man watched her as she spoke, his face showing no inkling of what he was thinking. Finally, when she had run out of steam, he smiled.

"I like the way you think," was what he said. She frowned.

"What?"

"I like the way you think," he repeated. "You ask questions, you think critically. You don't make any assumptions. You look for evidence, for affirmation. You want things to be reasonable and sound, to make sense. I like that. You may not believe, but you would make a good Christian with a mindset like that." She snorted incredulously.

"I would make a good Christian?" she said, as if it were the punch line to a joke. "To have what you call 'faith' is to renounce all logical thought, all capacity for scientific inquiry. To be religious is to abandon reality. To be a 'good' follower of a religion, a member has to renounce all common sense in order to ascribe to the magical 'truths' of the mythology. I would never do that."

"I think that perhaps your idea of what constitutes truth and inquiry is a little narrow," the man argued with kind eyes and a hint of a smile. "There are many avenues of truth in our world, and many ways to investigate them."

"Religion and science are completely at odds, reverend," Brennan said bluntly. "And that is the truth."

"If you attempt to use one to invalidate the other, then yes, they are," he said. "But let's imagine for a second that we live in a world where they can coexist, where they aren't mutually exclusive. Instead of pitting Darwin against Jesus, let's assume they are both leaders in their respective fields, colleagues in the quest for truth."

"Alright," Brennan said, listening partly out of interest, partly out of amusement.

"Great," he said. "So if they're both professors in, I don't know, the University of the Universe, obviously they work in different departments. Darwin's a professor of how, and Jesus is a professor of why."

"How and why?" she asked. He nodded.

"Exactly," he said. "Darwin specializes in telling us how things work—how life formed, how species evolved, how things became what they became. Biology, science, hard factual stuff."

"Okay," she said.

"And Jesus specializes in the why—_why _things formed the way they did, _why_ we became the humans we are now, why we stare up at the sky and wonder 'why' at all. If we were really pure animals, simple biological machines that were just made up of muscles and bones and hormones, what would be the evolutionary advantage of asking why? Wouldn't that mental energy be better spent doing other things? If survival of the fittest is true—and it certainly makes sense—wouldn't the ancestors who stood around staring up at the stars have been the ones who got eaten by predators, and never had the chance to give rise to a new generation of stargazers?"

Brennan didn't say anything, but continued to listen as he spoke, his tired eyes sparkling and his hands becoming more animated.

"That wonderment, that natural propensity towards curiosity, to me makes us more than just animals. It makes us human. It makes us images of God, filled with the wonder of the universe but without the capacity to ever truly understand it. Ecclesiastes, chapter three: _He has set eternity in the hearts of men._ Eternity. That's the why, not the how. Knowing the mechanics of the universe is great—the laws of physics, the intricacies of biology, the fundamental chemical basis for life—but that's not all there is.

"That's where religion comes in. It picks up the slack where science left off, and that makes them compatible. They aren't fighting for the same podium; they aren't even in the same auditorium. At the University of the Universe you can take classes in both, and honestly I think you should. Of course, I'm a little biased." He grinned, and she couldn't help but smile back.

"I have never heard anyone explain it in that way before," she said. "And I will admit that it does make sense when you illustrate it in that way. I still don't believe in God," she added hastily, "but the idea of the two peaceably coexisting doesn't seem so implausible anymore."

"Well, hallelujah," he said in a satisfied way, and they both chuckled in an exhausted way. It was now past four, and Brennan had still yet to sleep that night. Until she knew Sarah Leigh's fate, she didn't think she would, either. She rubbed her face with her hands and rose from the chair.

"I should go back to my family," she said.

"They're probably wondering where you are," he acknowledged, also rising from his seat. She rolled her eyes.

"You have no idea," she said. "Well, thank you for the interesting discussion, reverend."

"Please," he said, laying his hand kindly on her shoulder. "Call me Darren."


	26. Like a Picture With a Broken Frame

**A/N:** Okay, so... Muse went on vacation. Muse bought an airplane ticket and packed her bags and did not tell me where she was going or when she would be back. Muse ran off to Europe, and didn't even write. (And if you know what song that is in reference to, cookie points for you.) But Muse came back, after a week of shooters and drunk croquet and falling asleep on pool floats. Actually, I don't know if that's how she spent her week, because she won't tell me. What happens in Museland, she said, stays in Museland. Regardless, she's here and working now, so enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think! :)

* * *

_Life's like a novel  
With the end ripped out  
The edge of a canyon  
With only one way down  
Take what you're given before its gone  
Start holding on, keep holding on..._

_- Stand, Rascal Flatts_

* * *

It did not strike Brennan until she was in the elevator that Darren Reid the reverend was also Darren Reid, Molly's brother. She gasped involuntarily as the revelation hit her, then began mashing the button to return to the lower floor. After a frustrating few minutes on the elevator she rushed down the hall to the interfaith chapel, where he had nodded off in his seat, chin resting on his chest, floppy hair fallen in front of his eyes.

"Hey," she said, shaking his shoulder. He jumped, looking startled for a moment until his eyes came to rest on her.

"Long time no see," he said tiredly, coming around to his senses. "Did you think of something else you wanted to discuss?"

"I want you to come see my family," she said. "I don't believe in God, but they do. My cousin's in surgery right now, and they don't know if she's going to make it through. Don't chaplains pray for the souls of those who may be about to die, or something to that effect?"

"You mean extreme unction?" he asked. She nodded. "Well, Catholic chaplains can perform extreme unction if someone is about to pass, yes. But the person has to be present, and the chaplain has to be Catholic. I'm a Baptist minister."

"Can't you pray with them anyway?" she urged, not wanting to say anything lest he suddenly realize he had a four-thirty tea party to attend and flee before seeing his family. The way Molly had described his flightiness, Brennan wasn't taking any chances.

"Certainly," he said, smoothing his hair down and allowing Brennan to partially drag him out of the chapel and onto the elevator with her. She tapped her foot anxiously as the elevator crawled up to the O.R. floor, where her family was clustered together in a waiting room. Just before they reached their floor, her phone rang in her pocket. Only one person would be calling her at four-thirty in the morning, so she flipped it open without looking at the caller ID.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"Hello to you too," he said a little disgruntledly. She sighed.

"Sorry," she said. "Hello. Where are you?"

"I'm in the waiting room with your family," he said. "Well, outside of it. Where are you?"

"On the elevator," she said. "I'll be there in a minute. Where have you been?"

"I'll tell you when you get here," he said darkly. The doors opened with a ding, and she hung up the phone and stuffed it in her pocket. Booth was still standing outside of the waiting room door when Brennan and Darren approached, hands shoved in his pockets, staring at where the wall met the ceiling on the opposite side of the hallway. He looked stormy, but when he looked up and saw her his expression softened a bit. He furrowed his brows slightly at the sight of the strange man.

"Hey," Booth said when she approached, leaning in to give her a peck that she did not turn away from. "Who's this?"

"Darren Reid," Brennan said, almost proudly. "He's a chaplain here at the hospital." Booth's eyebrows shot up towards his hairline, he having obviously made the connection faster than she had.

"No kidding?" he said, holding his hand out to shake. Darren nodded slowly.

"Uh, yes sir," he said. "That's my job."

"Wow, I've been waiting to meet you," Booth said. Darren's face fell into a deeper confusion.

"Is that so?" he asked. Booth nodded as the door to the waiting room cracked open, a solid woman stepping through it and nearly bumping into the group of people.

"Sorry, I… oh my God," Lydia said, eyes falling on her son. "What the… where the hell have you been?" She looked fit to both embrace and knock out her son, who was just as startled to see her as she was him.

"Mom? Are you okay?" he asked, full of concern.

"I oughta ask you the same thing," she hissed. "Not pickin' up your phone, not comin' over to visit, I dunno when the last time I saw you was!"

"Sorry," he said, and he sounded like he meant it. "I've been up here at the hospital, they have me on call all the time…"

"You're a pastor, not a doctor. You can take time to be with your family when someone dies," she said darkly. "Or gets shot." His face paled.

"What? Who… wait…" he turned and looked at Brennan, squinting at her as if she was far off. "Who are you?"

"That's your cousin, Temperance," Lydia answered for her. "You'd'a known that if you ever showed up anymore." Darren surveyed her with wide eyes, lips turning up into a disbelieving smile as he shook his head slightly.

"Cousin? From who?" he finally asked.

"My oldest sister Ruth," Lydia said. "FBI sent her to work on the case for Abby and them. She had Mema's ring. Like I said, you'd'a _known_ that if you'd been home at all lately!"

"I'm sorry!" he repeated exasperatedly. She gave him a stern look, and he softened his tone. "I'm sorry, momma. I know I haven't been around, I'm sorry. Could we get back to someone getting shot? Who?"

"Sarah Leigh," Brennan said. "A few hours ago, at the house." Darren ran his hands backwards through his messy hair, shaking his head. He pressed his lips together and appeared frustrated.

"What's with this family and getting killed?" he asked angrily.

"She's not dead yet!" Lydia said, tone hostile. "Don't talk about her like she is."

"Where'd she get shot?" he asked.

"Abdomen," Brennan said. "There was a lot of blood. They started CPR when they put her in the ambulance and I haven't seen her since. They wouldn't let me ride."

"God," Darren said, looking if possible even paler and more worn down than he had ten minutes prior. "Has anybody come out to give an update yet?"

"No," Lydia growled. "Notta damn one. I'm gonna be up in there here soon if they don't come tell me somethin'."

"Sometimes no news is good news," Booth said, even-keeled through crisis as he often was.

"That's some bullshit if I ever heard it," Lydia retorted, having none of his calm wisdom. "They know we're out here worried half to death, they can send somebody to let us know she's still hangin' on." The door cracked open, and Molly's head poked out into the hallway.

"Mom, I… well damn," she paused, laying eyes on her brother. "Look who decided to show up. I've only been callin' you every day for the past week!" Her eyes were bloodshot and her face puffy, as it had been almost constantly since Eric's arrest, but that didn't conceal the anger spread across her features. In that moment Brennan could see a very clear resemblance between Lydia and her daughter.

"I'm sorry," Darren said for the third time. "I keep meaning to call you back, it's just…"

"Eric's in jail," she said shortly. "They're trying to charge him for Abby and them's murder. Sarah Leigh's shot. You have new cousins and an uncle. Apparently we're in the middle of some generation-old family feud and we're all walking targets. Just to get you up to speed. Maybe next time I call you'll pick up the damn phone!" With that she slammed the door shut, obviously forgetting whatever she had to say to her mother in the first place. Brennan raised her brows—she had not seen Molly that livid with anybody since she met her. The look on Darren's face, though, suggested that he had earned a thorough lashing and he knew it.

"Well," Lydia said, "now that you know what's going on, why don't you go in there and say hello to your long-lost family?" Darren rubbed the back of his neck with his hand and took a deep breath before opening the door and letting himself into the waiting room. As it shut Lydia sighed and shook her head.

"I dunno what happened to him," she said, almost bitterly. "Where'd you find him?"

"The chapel," Brennan hesitated to say. Her hiding place was officially disclosed.

"Huh," she said. "That's the last place I'd'a thought to find you. Anyway, you probably gathered that I don't know any more now than we did when we got here. I'm fixin' to walk down to that nurse's station down the hall and ask them if they can tell me how she is."

"We'll go," Booth said, volunteering himself and Brennan. "We'll go see if they can tell us anything." Lydia gave her approval and let herself back into the waiting room, and the pair started down the hall together.

"Sorry I couldn't pick up my phone earlier," Booth said as soon as they were fully out of earshot. "I was at Jack's shop. He texted me, said they'd dropped off the package."

"Did you get it? What was it?" Booth's face darkened.

"When I got there, he was dead," he said. "Well, dying. The register was trashed, everything was gone—the money, and I'm assuming the package too since I didn't find it. Saint John's county cops are calling it a robbery gone wrong, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't just a random robbery." Brennan sucked air through her teeth in a frustrated way.

"Damn," she swore. "So nothing?"

"Well, I tried to get Jack to tell me who did it, right before he died," Booth said, speaking low with his head bent to be nearer to hers as they took their time walking towards the nurse's station. "All he said though was 'snake'. What do you think that means?"

"Booth, he was dying," she said. "It probably didn't mean anything. Random synapse firing in the brain just before death can produce a variety of images or memories—the idea of one's life flashing before their eyes. Maybe he remembered seeing a snake." Booth shook his head.

"I don't think so," he said. "I feel like he knew what I was asking him, he was trying to answer me. I just don't know what it means."

"I don't know," Brennan said, in a way that suggested she did know exactly how she felt but was unwilling to pursue an argument about it at that moment, particularly an argument she knew she couldn't win. A cage match between logic and intuition is a long, bloody fight that always ends in a draw, and at almost five in the morning with no sleep she wasn't willing to entertain that battle. "So you were there the whole time?"

"No," he said. "After I got your call, I left the scene there and went down to Lydia's place to see what was going on. The guys from the FBI field office in Jacksonville intercepted the Clay County SO before they got to the scene and took jurisdiction, so I feel good about that."

"Good," Brennan said. "I was worried about that. I called the field office but I didn't know if they'd get there in time." Booth nodded.

"That was a good idea," he said. "Clay County automatically gets called out when you call 9/11, so if you hadn't called them up God only knows what kind of cover job McGrady's guys would've done."

"By the way," Brennan asked curiously, "how exactly did the FBI Jacksonville guys get to Lydia's house before the Clay County SO, when they had to drive twice as far?" Booth grinned.

"FBI secret," he said. "Highly classified." She rolled her eyes.

"I thought so," she said. "I knew you wouldn't leave the house without having someone on duty nearby."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," he said as they approached the nurse's station. The nurse seated behind the computer had a coffee in hand, limp strawberry-blonde hair pulled into a short ponytail near the nape of her neck. Her scrubs were an unnatural shade of orange, and she looked a bit like a very tired traffic cone. Maybe the color was meant to keep others around her from falling asleep on the job, Brennan thought as she cleared her throat.

"Excuse me," she said, calling attention to herself. The woman looked up, glassy blue eyes slowly lifting themselves from the screen. She had a thin face and a kind smile.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Yes, my cousin was brought in for emergency surgery over three hours ago, but we haven't gotten any updates on her condition. We were wondering if you could possibly send somebody back into the O.R. just to give us an update?" The small woman, who looked to be about sixteen but was probably realistically in her early twenties, nodded.

"Sure, what's the name of the patient?" she asked.

"Sarah Leigh Donnelly," Brennan said. The nurse stepped out from around the counter and walked them a bit further down the hall to a large whiteboard. On it was a list of all the operating rooms, who was in them, what kind of surgery, and who was scrubbed in. Brennan looked down at the woman, whose head she could see clear over, and watched her eyes trace up and down the board.

"Donnelly… Donnelly… O.R. three. O.R. three? Someone was supposed to give you guys an update over an hour ago." The nurse made a sound crossed between a sigh and a growl and shook her head. "I swear, nobody here ever does their job the first time around. Let me step back there right now and see what's going on, you two just wait at the nurse's station, okay?" They nodded simultaneously, returning to the nurse's station and waiting patiently for about ten minutes. The small redhead came back looking pleased.

"Well, I walked in just as they were closing up," she said. "Sarah is…"

"Sarah Leigh," Brennan corrected automatically before she could help herself.

"Sorry, Sarah Leigh. She's going to be fine. The surgery was exploratory; they found the bullet just above her diaphragm. It didn't hit a single organ. Her main problem was all the blood loss at the scene, that's why her heart kept giving out. They put a bunch of units into her and stitched up the entry wound, and now she's good to go. The surgeon thinks she might be able to go home later tonight or tomorrow morning."

"Really?" was all Brennan was able to cough out, too pleasantly shocked to say much else.

"Really really," the nurse said. "She'll be sore, but she hasn't got any internal injuries other than some bruising and the entry wound was small. They don't make a huge incision for exploratory surgeries anymore, so she won't have a big scar or anything. She'll be just fine." For the second time that week Brennan found herself crying in a happy way, but this time she wasn't the only one. Booth sniffled stoically, pressing his lips together and looking up at the ceiling.

"Thank you," he finally managed to say to the nurse, who patted them both sweetly on the arm.

"Of course," she said. "As soon as they've got her in recovery, we'll come down to the waiting room and let you know. This time someone will actually come." Brennan thanked the woman and they left. Half-way down the hall Booth stopped walking abruptly and pulled Brennan into a hug. She accepted the gesture, slightly bewildered.

"Are you okay?" she asked. He sighed and nodded.

"Yeah," he said, letting her go just enough so he could pull back and see her face to face, arms still around her middle. "I was just… I felt like if something had happened to her, it would've been my fault, for not being there. I'm just relieved, is all."

"I was feeling a little guilty myself," Brennan admitted, leaning into his chest and allowing him to place his chin atop her head. "I felt like I didn't try hard enough to stop her from leaving the house."

"She doesn't take orders very well," Booth pointed out. "You wouldn't be the first person who was unable to stop her from doing something stupid."

"Not stupid," Brennan corrected. "Brave. She was doing it for us, for everyone. She's tired of seeing people she loves die." He nodded, dropping a kiss on her forehead.

"You're right," he said. "Brave. Stupid, but brave." Whether it was the humor or the stress or the relief or all of the above, Brennan laughed.

"Let's go tell them the good news," Brennan said, disengaging herself from his arms. He nodded, sneaking her hand into his as they started walking again.

"Good news is right," he said, shooting a look upward as they rounded the corner, waiting room door in view.

When they let themselves into the room, they didn't even have to speak—their expressions gave it away. The room simultaneously grinned, then burst into tears, their fear and grief and anger culminating and breaking. Brennan cried again, and the whole room hugged one another, moving from one warm, breathing body to another, too blissful and loving in that moment to deny anyone affection. They were going to be alright. All of them.


	27. I Am Weary, Let Me Rest

**A/N:** Big giant update fail on my part. Two weeks. Yikes. But it's here now, so enjoy it and let me know what you think. :) By the way, the following excerpt is from one of my favorite hymns ever. Allison Krauss and Gillian Welch did a great cover of it for the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou?" if you've never heard it before.

* * *

When the shadows of this life have gone  
I'll fly away  
Like a bird from prison bars has flown  
I'll fly away  
I'll fly away, Oh Glory  
I'll fly away, in the morning  
When I die, Hallelujah by and by  
I'll fly away...

- I'll Fly Away, Albert E. Brumley

* * *

They stayed at the hospital long enough to see Sarah Leigh in the recovery room, heavily sedated after surgery but otherwise fine. The sun was beginning to touch the eastern horizon, sky shifting into a faint, fuzzy early-morning blue as they pulled out of the parking garage. They hadn't been on the road but five minutes before Brennan was knocked out in the passenger's seat, and it took all that Booth had to stay awake during the hour-long drive back to Lydia's house.

Every once in a while he allowed his eyes to drift over to his right, where his partner had brought her knees up towards her chest, arms draped around them, head leaned against the car window as she slept. He had always thought something about watching women sleep was a little voyeuristic, but at the same time he couldn't help but drink her in during this most natural state—not tense, not calculated, not shrewd. She was peaceful and quiet, two things she rarely was in her waking moments. She was just being, and it was a rare privilege for him to see her just be.

Particularly now, nobody had much time to sit and be at peace with themselves. They were too worried about getting shot in the back. Literally every member of Brennan's family that was presently in the state of Florida had been in Shands hospital that night, which despite the situation had given Booth some sense of relief. An anonymous McVicar was less likely to try and off one of them within the safety of a very public building. But now they were all sleepily driving home, save for Judy who had elected to sleep in a chair at her child's bedside despite her protests. Soon they would be back in the woods, and back in very real danger.

Whoever had shot Sarah Leigh the night before had been more careless, more blatant than anything that had happened before. There was an urgency that Booth sensed in the crime, a recklessness—they were getting close, and everyone knew it. But who 'everyone' was, how big that circle extended, Booth still didn't know the entirety of.

He felt good about McGrady, the shady sheriff—the FBI was airing out all of his department's dirty laundry now, so whatever they had kept in the dark would come to light soon enough. The man was also on close tabs, so whatever threat he might have been he no longer was. Booth ground his teeth—he was anxious to talk to the FBI field officers at Lydia's house, to see what kind of evidence they'd found at the scene. He wanted desperately for the bullet that shot Sarah Leigh to have exploded from a rifle shell, and for that rifle shell to match all the others they had. He wanted to tie every last shred of evidence to the McVicars and whoever else was working with them. He wasn't leaving any room for error.

The caravan of trucks and SUVs made its way down Lydia's meandering dirt road, and when they reached the expansive yard they found that most of the FBI team had packed up, save for a few final techs lazily rolling up scene tape and tossing cases of tools into the back of an unmarked Sequoia not unlike the one Booth drove. A black man in a crisp blue suit leaned against the SUV with his arms crossed, watching the techs lazily, and Booth assumed him to be the agent he spoke to from the Jacksonville field office the night before. Lydia ushered Molly and her children into the house as Booth roused Brennan from sleep with a gentle tap on the shoulder. She arched her back as she stretched in her seat, and Booth let himself out of the SUV and walked over to the tired-looking agent.

"Seeley Booth," Booth said, holding his hand out to the man who shook it with a weary nod of acknowledgment.

"Omar Miller," the man said, in the slow, drawling way Booth had grown accustomed to by now. "Nice to put a face to a name, Agent Booth."

"It is," he said. "Everything been smooth here?" Both agents looked out at the yard, which seemed serene in the morning light. If you ignored the evidence markers in the grass and the tarp that covered a once-breathing lump on the far edge of the property, you might not think someone had nearly died there only hours before.

"Just about," Agent Miller said, his deep voice resonating through his thick chest. He was built like a linebacker, with broad, smooth hands that he rested in his pants pockets as he spoke. "Shells from the scene all matched what you got on file already—7 mm Rem Mags, sent 'em off with the techs to analyze to see if the grooves match the others."

"I bet they will," Booth said. Agent Miller nodded.

"Our guys been working on that sheriff's office all morning too," he noted. "Boy do they have a lot of shit in there. Double, triple copies of certain cases, all marked up different, stuff goin' back twenty years or more. Sure as hell glad I'm not the one overseeing that mess." Booth swore under his breath.

"I knew it," Booth said. "Damn."

"I hate a crooked cop," Agent Miller said darkly. Booth nodded his mutual disgust.

"Me too," he said. "I can't believe I didn't see it sooner."

"McGrady's a sly bastard, Agent Booth," Agent Miller said wisely. "He's been at this game for a long time. Don't blame yourself." Then, as the thought suddenly occurred to him, Agent Miller asked, "So how's the young lady doin'?"

"Sarah Leigh?" Booth asked. "She's fine, actually. Doctors think she can come home tomorrow morning, after the swelling goes down. The guy didn't hit a single organ when he shot her." Agent Miller closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest.

"Thank God," he said, and Booth did.

"I can't wait to catch that son of a bitch," Booth said. Agent Miller tilted his head towards the unmoving tarp on the edge of the trees, signaling Booth to follow him.

"I got you one step closer to that," he said as they approached the covered mass. Agent Miller pulled the corner of the tarp back and revealed the head of a large brown and white dog. The animal had a hole shot clean through the top of its head, matted blood dried around its edges. Booth felt his heart sink the way it had never done for an animal before.

"Poor Buckshot," he said under his breath.

"That his name?" Agent Miller asked. Booth nodded. "Well, Buckshot's a hero. He bit the hell out of that guy, probably saved your girl's life. If everything you've got in the file is right so far, she's the only one they've ever gone after personally who lived to tell about it, and I'm willing to bet it's 'cause the dude couldn't get a good shot with the dog on him." Booth mused over that fact as he stared down at the dog's glassy, unmoving eyes.

"Was there blood?" Booth asked, motioning to the dog's partially open jaw. "Did you get a DNA sample?" Agent Miller nodded.

"Not just blood, but meat too," he said. "We got eyes in all the area hospitals and clinics, 'cause that guy got the shit bit out of him somewhere and he needed stitches bad. There's a trail of blood through those woods—" Agent Miller motioned vaguely into the trees, "—for about thirty feet until it gets to the dirt road where he must've parked."

"Wow," Booth said. "That's great. You think he's gonna show up somewhere?" Agent Miller shrugged.

"Might," he said. "If it gets bad enough. Or he might try and stitch it up himself. It he does, he'll probably get a nasty infection and end up in the hospital in a week anyway. Or he'll die. It's just a matter of time with a bite like that. The important thing is that we got a big chunk of the guy's DNA to run through CODIS. Hopefully it brings him up."

"I hope," Booth said, and he did. He wanted more than anything to have a name and face, an address would be even better. Whether he was a McVicar or someone working directly under them, he felt sure this guy would be the key to cracking the case. Booth felt more admiration for Buckshot in that moment than he ever had, and probably ever would, for any animal he'd ever met.

"Anyway, that's about all we got right now," Agent Miller said, heading back towards the SUV which had been completely packed up. "We're gonna run the DNA as soon as we get it up to the lab in Jacksonville, and match the grooves on the shells. When I get word on either one I'll give you a call." Booth shook the man's hand as he got into his SUV.

"Great, thanks Agent Miller," he said.

"Omar," the agent corrected with a brilliantly white smile. "I'll be in touch." With that the door shut and Booth stepped back as the engine revved up, vehicle pulling around and exiting down the dirt road from which it came. Booth wiped a few sweat beads from his brow as he entered Lydia's house and found Brennan sitting up on the couch, head leaned back against it, eyes shut. Booth grinned—if she had been trying to stay awake to see what he had learned from the field officer, she'd failed. He sat down gently on the opposite end of the couch and leaned back into it, shutting his eyes. He wanted to doze off, let her wake him up when she awoke so he could share the potentially great news, but his mind couldn't rest. Something wasn't right.

His eyes trailed over to the window above the kitchen sink and he realized that Buckshot's body was still lying under that tarp, uncared for. Booth groaned and lifted himself off the cushions—that was no way to treat a hero.

Lydia didn't have a garage, but she did have a shed out back near the dock, and in that shed Booth found a shovel. He started digging the hole at the edge of the woods, pausing only for a moment to remove his t-shirt when he felt it sticking to his sweaty back. As the sun crept higher into the sky he felt the skin on his neck and shoulders burn, but he ignored it. Occasionally he wiped the sweat off of his brow and lip, smearing salt and water and dirt along his face and forearm. He didn't care.

Every frustration he had with this case, every fear he had for Brennan and her family, every guilty piece of him that felt he should have recognize McGrady as a snake from the beginning, every vexation the word 'snake' gave him, went into the hole. With every shovel full of dirt he removed, he added a new frustration. As the mound of earth next to him grew higher, so did the count of his pain. The rough wooden handle drove splinters into his hands and roused age-old blisters, but the physical sensation went unfelt. One foot, two feet, three, he dug deeper and deeper into the sandy Florida crust. He hit a layer of tan clay and dug through it, tossing it aside with the rest of the dirt.

He didn't feel time pass, but there did come a point when he realized the sun was fully overhead and he was standing in a hole waist high, dried blood in the creases of his palms. He lifted himself out and laid the shovel aside, surveying the depth and breadth of the grave and deciding it was large enough.

The dog's body was not as heavy as Booth expected it to be, for a creature so large. He lifted him into his arms and walked him the ten or so feet to the grave rather than dragging him, because you don't drag heroes through the dirt. He felt the dog's smooth fur against his chest and arms, warm to touch as if he were still alive and breathing. But it was just the sun—he was not alive, he was not breathing.

Booth laid the animal gently in the hole, nearly falling into it himself as he bent down to put the animal in his final resting place. He ran his knuckles along the side of the dog's large block head, and then said a small prayer for whatever soul the dog might have before he crossed himself and took up the shovel again, making sure he finished the job.

Brennan watched Booth through the kitchen window, the man completely unaware. She watched him speak incomprehensible words to an incomprehensible creator, touching his fingers to his forehead, midsection, and across his shoulders briefly. She watched his pink shoulders strain as he heaped shovels of dirt onto the dog, each one seeming heavier to the man than the one before it. She watched him pat down the last of the dirt, smoothing it over as best as he could despite his sleepless exhaustion, when it would have been so easy to just leave it the way it was.

She watched him lean the shovel against a tree as he crossed over to the far side of the yard, where a tangle of yellow and white blossoms—a yellow shrimp plant—sprang up out of the parched earth despite the scorching summer heat. She watched him snap a few of the supple green stems from the mother plant, and return to Buckshot's grave with them. She watched him lay them on the packed earth at his feet. She watched him wipe his eyes on the back of his hand, shaking his head.

She wiped her eyes too, and let herself cry over what had been lost, and what had not.


	28. You Know That I Could Use Somebody

**A/N:** Speed update! I got back into my groove, at least briefly. By the way, I love that you all seem to be huge dog lovers like me, judging by your reviews on the last chapter. Dogs rule. :) This chapter I have nicknamed the "man chapter" because it has a distinctly male flavor. We haven't seen a lot of the guys lately so I figured it was a good idea. The ending also paves the way for something I have been thinking about for a long, long time... but that comes later. Enjoy this chapter, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_You find out who your friends are  
Somebody's gonna drop everything  
Run out and crank up their car  
Hit the gas, get there fast  
Never stop to think, 'What's in it for me?'  
Or, 'It's way too far'  
They just show on up with their big old heart  
You find out who your friends are..._

_- You Find Out Who Your Friends Are, Tracy Lawrence_

* * *

Booth was finally able to mentally unwind after a long shower, and barely made it from the bathroom to the little pink bed Brennan had relocated to before he passed out. He slept hard, feeling no time pass between when he hit the sheets and when he felt a hand shaking his shoulder a few hours later, around two in the afternoon.

"Hrrmmm…" Booth grumbled, pressing his face into the pillow. The hands shook him harder.

"Get up, dude," a male voice whispered, apparently trying to leave Brennan to sleep in peace. Booth ground his teeth together, wishing very much for more than three uninterrupted hours of sleep and wanting to express that wish loudly. He bit his tongue though—they were running on almost as little sleep as he was, so he had no room to complain to them about it. He rolled out of the bed and pulled a pair of shorts and a t-shirt out of the suitcase laid open on the floor, which had been magically refilled with clean clothes by the laundry fairy the previous morning. He followed Mike out of the room, taking a glimpse at Brennan's hair-obscured sleeping face and feeling his lips twitch upward in a smile briefly before he shut the door behind him.

"What?" Booth asked irritably as soon as they were in the hall, rubbing his face vigorously with his hands and regretting that choice immediately—his palms were still swollen and speckled with tiny shards of wood deposited there by the shovel handle.

"Me and John are going to Molly's to clean up," he said. "Aunt Lydia went over there like an hour ago and said it's horrible, the cops tore up everything. Her and the kids haven't been home yet to see it, so we were gonna…"

"Right, yeah," Booth said, nodding tiredly. He had forgotten that it was only the previous night that Eric had been arrested and his house searched up and down for the gun he did not use in a crime he did not commit—not even twenty four hours ago. It felt like a lifetime had passed since then.

"So you'll come, then?" Mike asked. Booth nodded, and Mike smiled appreciatively.

"Thanks, man," he said, picking his keys up off the kitchen counter. "I knew you would." Booth crawled into Mike's Bronco—the same one he had pulled Sarah Leigh out of just two nights before in the hospital parking lot when they chased Eric into the night—and couldn't help but feel that time was moving much, much faster than it normally did. How had that been only two nights ago? How had so much happened in the space of not even three days? He leaned back into the passenger's seat and sighed.

"It's crazy, ain't it?" Mike offered, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as they pulled onto the main dirt road that paralleled the river, driving only about two miles down it before turning down what Booth assumed was Molly and Eric's driveway. "Everything, I mean. Everything that's happening. It's just crazy."

"It is," Booth agreed. Crazy was a good word for it.

"Makes you feel like you're walkin' around with a target on your back," Mike observed. "I tell the guys at the shop I can't come into work today, and you know, they ask me why. Suddenly I'm paranoid, wonderin' why they need to know, you know? Starting to wonder about everyone now." Booth saw a small brown house come into view, set further away from the water than Lydia's but with just as much waterfront view.

"It's probably better you keep it to yourself for now," Booth said. "Because you're right, you don't know about anybody right now. Anyone could be involved." Mike gave a little shudder as he parked the Bronco next to John's truck, cutting off the engine.

"It's terrible, but it's true," he agreed. "I'm supposed to have the kids this week, me and Lisa switch off week by week during the summer, but I told her to keep 'em and take 'em to her parents house. Her folks live in Lake Mary now, moved there a few years ago, so it's out of the way."

"Where's that?" Booth asked. Mike made an indistinct hand gesture.

"Down a ways," he said. "Outside'a Altamonte Springs." Booth gave him a very plain look that suggested he did not know where Altamonte Springs was, and Mike laughed. "Sorry, I meant outside Orlando. You know, Disney and shit." Booth laughed.

"Yeah, I know where Orlando is," he said. Mike smirked.

"I figured," he said. "Anyway, her folks moved there after her dad retired from the dairy. Got sick of bein' in the middle of nowhere, I guess. Lake Mary ain't big, but it's a lot closer to Orlando than we are to… well, anything. So I told her, take Danny and Maggie down to see their Nana and Papa, take 'em to Disney, do whatever, just stay down there for a while 'til we got this thing figured out up here, you know?" Booth nodded.

"That was a good idea," he said as they approached Molly and Eric's front door, which was shut but not locked. Mike knocked on it as he opened it.

"It's me!" he shouted in through the cracked door. When he heard John yell back he opened it all the way and let them in. "I ain't tryin' to sneak up on him with all this goin' on." When Booth saw the loaded shotgun laying in plain view on the coffee table as they entered the living room, he didn't blame Mike at all for giving fair warning. Everyone was on defense.

John was in the kitchen, sweeping shards of glass and porcelain into a dustpan and dumping them into the trash. Booth was shocked by the level of damage done to the house—they hadn't just tossed it, they had intentionally broken or displaced as many objects as they could in every room they searched. It reminded him of a special he had seen on the Weather Channel once, about people who were in their houses when tornadoes touched down on them. Unfortunately there was no clause in any homeowner's insurance policy he was aware of that covered heartless police damage.

"Seeley, I know you don't know how the living room is put together but if you wanna start puttin' the cushions back on the couch and organizin' the books in the shelf and all, I'd appreciate it," John said, looking up briefly from his sweeping. Booth nodded and got to work, righting what had been wronged, feeling his blood boil with every passing moment that he took in the disarray around them.

"I dunno why the hell cops feel like they gotta tear up a place like this," Mike lamented about twenty minutes later as he re-entered the house, wiping his brow on the back of his arm. "The Bronco's full, by the way. Seeley, we might need to use the SUV to get all this stuff up to the dump."

"Where's the nearest dump at?" Booth asked.

"Palatka," John said. "It ain't far, like twenty minutes maybe."

"You drive your trash twenty minutes to the dump every week?" Booth asked, finding himself grateful for the loud, irate trash pick-up services in D.C. John shrugged.

"Whatever we can't burn," he said.

"I thought there was a burn ban out here?" Booth asked. John snorted.

"I mean, sure," he said. "There is. But who's really gonna come out to the middle of nowhere just to make sure we aren't burnin' our trash?" Suddenly a rag flew from across the kitchen and caught John on the back of the head.

"That shit's bad for the environment, dumbass," Mike said.

"So are landfills!" John retorted.

"Not as bad as burnin' it is," Mike said. "We aren't all heathens, Seeley. I take _my_ trash to the dump. I'm tryin' to set a good example for my kids."

"Well I ain't got no kids to set an example for, so I'm'a burn my trash if I damn well want to," John said stubbornly, hanging the rag back over the oven door handle.

"This is why you're twenty-eight and single," Mike said. "You don't give a shit about anybody but yourself."

"And this is why you're thirty and divorced," John spat back. "'Cause you're a douche bag." Booth watched amusedly as the brothers went at it like they were little kids again, wishing he had this kind of relationship with Jared. He hadn't spoken to Jared in weeks, and the last time he had it had been only briefly, almost in passing. He couldn't imagine these brothers going more than forty-eight hours without talking.

About half an hour later Booth was putting stacks of folded clothes back into Eric and Molly's dresser drawers when he heard a high-pitched scream come from the kitchen area of the house. He bolted down the hall and into the living room, and was confused when he saw Mike leaning against the wall, bent over and laughing so hard tears sprang up in his eyes. The front door was thrown open and John was in the front yard, smacking at his own arms and face as if he were being attacked by a swarm of hornets. _Spazzing_, was the word that came to Booth's mind.

"What the hell?" Booth asked, and Mike hitched for air, attempting to control himself.

"He… it…" he let out a wheezing laugh, then snorted and tried to compose himself again. "He found Susan."

"Susan?" Booth asked, brows knitted together. Mike continued to laugh and wheeze as John poked his head into the front door, looking mortified.

"Did you get it yet?" he asked. Mike positively howled, and John punched the door frame aggravatedly. "Damn it Mike, it's not fucking funny!"

"Who's Susan?" Booth asked again. Mike held up a 'wait' finger as he crossed into the kitchen, peering down into the cabinet under the sink. He reached in gingerly and pulled out a small red and orange snake, about a foot and a half long, standing up and holding it out to see.

"This," Mike said, still trying to repress his laughter as the snake gently wrapped herself around his hands, "is Susan." Booth turned to John, who stood hesitantly in the doorway, and smirked.

"A corn snake? Seriously?" he asked.

"Shut the hell up," John said irritably. "Mike, put that damn thing back where it belongs. I dunno how the hell it got out in the first place, I thought Branden put a brick on the top of its tank."

"She has a name, you know," Mike said, feigning insult. He coiled the snake in his right hand, stroking it along its smooth scales with his left. "John's terrified of snakes, always has been. Big friggin' baby."

"Shut up!" John said, shifting his weight in the doorway and looking anxious. "Just put it back already. Put _her_ back, whatever. Jesus."

"Fine, don't get your panties all in a bunch," Mike said, snickering to himself. "Seeley, you want to hold her first? She's real calm." Booth hesitated, then nodded.

"Sure," he said. Mike handed her over and Seeley held her gently in his hands, feeling her cool scales and taut muscles as she adjusted to his grip. He remembered being under the florist's shop with Brennan when the snakes came slithering out of the locked room, and the way she had leaped up in fear. He smirked—she was okay with just one snake, like the one in New Orleans, but apparently two dozen was more than she could handle. Suddenly something occurred to him.

"Where'd they get Susan?" he asked Mike, looking up from the delicate creature.

"Oh God," John moaned from the doorway. "Don't tell me you _like_ that thing."

"Snake farm," Mike said, motioning to his left but in no particular direction. "They breed all kinds—corn snakes, king snakes, pythons, boas, greens…" John shuddered in the background, and Booth's gears turned rapidly.

"How close is it?" Booth asked. Mike shrugged.

"I dunno, it's out past the church, maybe half an hour? It's right across from the Moretti place."

"Eugh, those people give me the jitters too," John said, finally letting himself take a few hesitant steps into the living room and shutting the door to keep in the cool air.

"Be nice," Mike said. "Tony's a good guy, he's just a little… to himself, you know?"

"It's not Tony who gives me the willies, it's Scary Mary."

"Scary who?" Booth asked. Mike rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Don't call her that," he said. "Poor girl has enough problems without jackasses like you making fun of her."

"I'm not making fun, she is scary!" John said, turning to Booth. "This girl is nuts, I dunno what's wrong with her but Tony keeps her locked up in that farmhouse all the time, she almost never comes out. Sometimes I see her sittin' in his truck when he comes down to the shop for parts or whatever, he can't leave her alone at the house I guess. All pale, scraggly lookin', she's like a ghost."

"That's enough," Mike said. "You don't know her life, you don't know what happened to her."

"I heard the stories," John said gravely. "So did you."

"Yeah and I stopped believin' 'em when I was about ten," Mike spat, taking the snake from Booth's grasp and walking into Branden's room with her, putting her back in the tank.

"What are the stories?" Booth asked out of an undeniable curiosity.

"Well," John said in a low voice, "they say she used to be normal, like a regular kid. Then somethin' happened to her, dunno what, but she kind of… kind of went crazy, you know? Started going after other kids, burnin' 'em with lighters and shit, pulling out her hair and talking crazy. Then one day they found her walkin' down the street, covered in blood. They pulled her out of school and we never really saw her after that."

"So she's your age?" Booth asked. John nodded.

"Used to be in my class," he said. "Mary Moretti, and her older brother Tony, he's Mike's age. Tony's a nice enough guy I guess, like John said he keeps to himself, takes care of his sister. Their parents died a few years ago… everyone said Mary did it."

"Are you done tellin' stories on people now?" Mike asked, reentering the room with a cross look on his face. John held his hands up innocently.

"Not stories, facts," John said. Mike snorted.

"Bull," he said.

"I want to go down to the snake farm," Booth said. "I want to talk to whoever runs the place, maybe to Tony Moretti."

"How come?" Mike asked.

"Just want to check it out," Booth said vaguely. "Talk to some people, see what they might know." Mike shrugged.

"Suit yourself," he said. "I guess we're about done here anyway. John, you want to come? I hear Mary's single too, maybe you two could have drinks." John shoved him in the shoulder.

"Oh screw you," he said. "No, I'm gonna go start driving stuff down to the dump." Booth shot a wary look out the window before looking down at the coffee table, where the shotgun still sat idly on the polished wood surface.

"Well take that," he said, motioning towards it, "if you're going out alone." An air of somberness fell on them, and they all nodded.

"Yeah," John said, nodding. "Better safe than sorry."


	29. I'm Blind and Waiting For You

**A/N:** Fail. Big, giant update fail. I know it's been forever... almost 3 weeks. But to be fair, they have been rough weeks, filled with many doctor's appointments and unanswered questions. Also, those of you who read _The Foster Child in the Forensic Anthropologist_ may remember that about three chapters into that story, one of my friends passed away in a tragic accident. The 3rd of this month was the one year anniversary of that, which was very hard. Anyway, here is the newest update on this story, and please let me know what you think. Given the way it ends, I should be more motivated for a quick update...

* * *

_May angels lead you in  
Hear you me, my friends  
On sleepless roads the sleepless go  
May angels lead you in..._

_- Hear You Me, Jimmy Eat World_

**_Always remembered, Jeff_**

**_"So our human life but dies down to its root,  
and still puts forth its green blade to eternity."  
- Thoreau  
_**

* * *

Brennan rolled out of bed around two, feeling sluggish and hot the way she usually did if she slept too late into the afternoon. The fan whirred overhead but she was sticky with sweat, having fallen asleep under the pink John Deere comforter and apparently been too exhausted to kick it off in her sleep. She stumbled into the bathroom and splashed water on her face, pinching her cheeks in a vain effort to wake up. When she ruminated on the past week and a half, both the events that had taken place and the utter lack of sleep she had experienced, it was no wonder she felt so drained. It had finally caught up to her, like a train.

She took a cool shower and felt fresh and awake, the sweat and grime and glaze of anxiety from the past two days cleaned off of her. There was a neat stack of clothes sitting in her open suitcase, and she could only assume that Lydia had done her laundry at some point during all of the insanity. She smiled wryly as she pulled a pair of jeans and a shirt out of the pile—that woman really never stopped, regardless of what was going on.

In the kitchen she found Molly busying herself with the dishes, scrubbing them intently with a fervor most people did not apply to flatware. She didn't even seem to be aware of Brennan's presence as she entered the small room, watching her cousin with piqued curiosity. She went to place a plate in the drying rack on the counter when Eleanor called out from the yard, and Molly jumped visibly, plate falling out of her hands and onto the floor with a plastic clatter. She wiped her hands on her pants legs and rubbed her face, taking a long breath before replying.

"What, baby?" she said, turning to the side and looking surprised by Brennan's presence.

"When are we goin'?" she asked, poking her round face into the doorway in the kitchen.

"Soon," she said. "Just let me finish these, okay?" Eleanor nodded and disappeared again into the yard, where she and Maya appeared to be playing some imaginary game with co-conspirators they couldn't see.

"Where are you going?" Brennan asked, noticing Molly's apparent pallor. She looked ill, like she was just beginning to recover from a bad case of the flu. It was undoubtedly stress.

"Me and Charlene are fixin' to take the kids to the Super Wal-mart up in Starke," she said.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Brennan asked, wary of her family members leaving the relative safety of the surveillance Booth had put on Lydia's home. "Booth said it would be best if everyone stayed around…"

"Look," Molly said, more harshly than she meant to. She sighed and continued. "Sorry, but look, Sarah Leigh's gonna be home later tonight maybe and she's gonna need a lot of taking care of. We're next to out of food, mom just used the last of the detergent last night—" Brennan felt a pang of guilt as she looked down at her freshly laundered top. "—and the kids are going stir-crazy. _I'm_ going stir-crazy. It'll be good for everyone to get out of the house for a little bit, plus Eleanor needs to get her eyes looked at, I think she needs glasses."

"What makes you think so?" Brennan asked. Molly broke a grin.

"Eleanor!" Molly called out into the yard. Brennan subconsciously clenched her teeth, the way she did when anyone said Eleanor's name. Where she came from, Eleanor was an elegant, flowing name with a soft ending. Down here it was harsh and dropped off at the end, sounding more like 'Eluhner.' The little girl looked up at her mother in the doorway. "How many fingers am I holdin' up?" Molly held up two fingers in the shape of a "V". Eleanor squinted despite the cloudiness that had rolled in over the past hour, smooth face scrunched in concentration.

"Uh… four?" the little girl guessed. Molly shook her head and stepped back into the house.

"See what I mean?" she said. "She's startin' kindergarten in the fall, I don't want her not being able to see the whiteboard. They got an express eye place in the Wal-mart, she can get looked at while we shop. You want to come with us?" Brennan chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment, then nodded.

"I guess a trip to the store won't hurt."

oOoOoOoOo

Booth felt the warm, sticky breeze blow through the Bronco's open windows as Mike drove them down a smooth county road, empty fields dotted with hay bales and the occasional cluster of cows gathered beneath a tree for shade. Their tails flicked lazily and he felt his lids droop, the sound of the wheels against the asphalt and the gentle rattle of trash in the backseat pulling him under like a lullaby. Every once in a while he would feel Mike's hand shoving his shoulder lightly, and hear him say, "Don't go to sleep, we're almost there."

Forty minutes later they were actually almost there, and Mike slowed down as they turned left at an ancient-looking convenience store with sheets in the windows and plastic trash bags over the gas pumps. Booth's FBI spidey-senses tingled, but he shook it off—he wasn't out here to catch drug dealers, he had bigger fish to fry. Further down the road he saw a large, square cement building in the back of a field with an almost shed-like house set off several yards from it. There was a sign pounded into the dirt on the side of the road at the turn that said "Walton's Snake Emporium" with a phone number underneath.

On the other side of the road the field turned into woods, cut through the middle by a poorly-defined dirt path. Mike turned right onto the path and trundled through the bumpy grass, into the woods, then passed through the woods into a clearing. In the clearing stood an impressive Victorian-replica house, complete with a creepy spire and collapsing wrap-around porch. Paint flaked in areas and the house had an aura of dilapidation, not unlike the old Ford truck parked in front. Set off behind the house was an old brown barn, heavy doors locked with a chain and padlock.

"Here it is," Mike said, pulling the keys out of the ignition and pocketing them. "Tony and Mary Moretti's house." They got out of the vehicle and walked up to the front door, carefully testing their weight on the planks of the porch, which did not look entirely stable. There was a knocker but no doorbell, and Booth had the itching feeling up the back of his neck that he was in the beginning of a horror flick. They rapped the knocker against the flaking red door, and waited. They heard absolutely no sounds from within the house, and Booth began to wonder if anyone was home at all, until the door very suddenly opened in front of them.

"Mike Rainer?" the man asked, looking pleasantly surprised to see two living people standing in his doorway. Mike shook the man's hand kindly and nodded.

"Yep, sorry to drop in on you like this," he said. "This is Seeley Booth." Booth offered his hand to Tony Moretti, who shook it with a hesitant smile. His eyes were lazy blue and narrow set on his face, paired with a tapering nose that gave him a slightly rodent-like appearance. His hair was mousy brown and peppered with grey, even though he was only just thirty, still several years younger than Booth. He looked to be forty, with his receding hairline and somewhat portly figure.

"Hi Seeley, I'm Tony, it's nice to meet you. Y'all come in, please," Tony said, stepping back and allowing them to enter the house. Booth couldn't help but notice the man's soft-spoken voice, almost a whisper, as if someone were sleeping in the next room. He didn't see anyone in the house though, as they walked down the hall, passing a sitting room cluttered with knick-knacks and a neglected upright piano, a dining room whose table was cleared on one side and covered with stacks of books on the other, and the most peculiar staircase Booth had ever seen. It started straight up, then suddenly branched off, cutting up to the right on one side and spiraling upright all the way to the top of the spire.

Tony lead them all the way to the back of the quiet, slightly stuffy house, into a kitchen with a cast iron stove and an old, humming green refrigerator circa 1970. There was a small table in what almost qualified as a breakfast nook, with two chairs pushed neatly underneath it. Tony excused himself down the hall into the dining room, where he came back dragging a heavy wooden chair from the dining set.

"Please, sit down," he said. "Would you like anything?" Mike and Booth both shook their heads, and Tony set down the glass he had already taken out of the cupboard and took a seat at the small table with them. The house, Booth decided, reminded him very much of an old person's home—stuffy, quiet, decaying. There was something dying about this house, slowly and unassumingly, and it unnerved him.

"Nice place," Booth said to break the ice as Tony stared placidly at him from across the table. The man smiled.

"Thank you," he said softly. "My parents bought it and fixed it up when we were kids, really made it shine. Of course, you wouldn't know that now from looking at it. I've kind of let things fall apart as of late…"

"No," Mike protested politely. "It looks great." Tony looked as though he appreciated the man's sentiment but could taste the forced kindness of it. "Doesn't it, Seeley?" Booth nodded vaguely, but he wasn't paying attention to the conversation at the table anymore. As an FBI agent and the father of a young boy, he was well trained in hearing the sound of muffled tip-toeing footsteps, and he heard them now. They started down the stairs a few steps, then stopped, and Booth strongly felt the presence of someone else in the house.

"Uh, yeah," Booth said, forcing himself back into the conversation. "It's nice."

"So what brings you out here?" Tony asked, directing the question mostly to Mike.

"Well," Mike said, swallowing before he answered and laying his hands out on the table as if to show that he had nothing to hide. "Seeley is a special agent with the FBI, he's been running an investigation on what happened to Abby and Robbie and Laura." Tony nodded gravely.

"I was sorry to hear about that," he said. "Abby was your sister, right?" Mike nodded in a hard way.

"Yeah," he said. "She was. Anyway, Seeley's been doing some diggin' around and he wanted to ask you a few questions about… well, go ahead," he said, giving the floor to Booth since even Mike wasn't really sure what they were out there for. Tony turned his gaze to Booth patiently.

"Well, uh…" Booth began, not even knowing for sure what exactly compelled him to come out to this place. "I was wondering if you can tell me what you know about the Waltons."

"Waltons, like, the snake folks across the street?" Tony asked. Booth nodded, and Tony shrugged his shoulders. "They're alright, I've spoke to them a few times, I honestly don't know them very well though."

Suddenly there was a loud clatter in the hall, like the sound of plastic plates hitting the ground. All three men jumped up from the table, Booth and Mike naturally on the defensive after what had transpired over the past two weeks, and bolted to the hallway to see the culprit.

She stood in the middle of the hall, frozen like a nocturnal creature caught in bright lights. On the ground at her bare feet was an empty plastic plate, ketchup still smeared on the surface, and a sideways cup whose remaining contents were dribbling out onto the floor. Her eyes traced from Booth, to Mike, to her brother, then inexplicably back to Booth's.

She reminded him terribly of his mother during her worst times of mental instability. Her face was hollow, thin and lifeless like a sketch, large dark eyes protruding slightly from her face and standing in stark contrast to the whiteness of her skin. Her hair was dark and limp, unbrushed like that of a child, and she wore a blue nightgown that hung away from her slight frame. Her tongue darted across her lips as her brows pulled together, eyes drawn to Booth's seemingly without her own consent.

Tony stepped forward and stood between his sister and the men, seemingly shielding her from their sight. He tugged at her arm and pulled her towards the stairs, and she obliged without a fight. Booth and Mike couldn't help but watch as he lead the woman up the stairs and out of sight, only their footsteps audible. Tony returned after a moment looking terribly apologetic.

"I'm sorry," were, naturally, the first words out of his mouth. Booth was already shaking his head.

"Don't be," he said firmly, bending down to pick up the plate and cup. Tony met him half-way down, taking the flatware from his hands with a brief thank you. They made their way awkwardly back into the kitchen, and Booth chose to quickly change the subject to something hopefully benign.

"So Tony, what do you do for a living? I saw you've got a pretty big barn out back," he said casually. Tony set the plate and cup into the sink and ran water over them, still avoiding the gaze of both men directly.

"Hay," Tony replied. "All those fields you saw driving up were my parents', I keep up with what they left." Booth watched as the man wiped a soapy sponge over the plate and around the inside of the cup, rinsing them and setting them on a drying rack. When he leaned over to set up the plate in the rack, Booth saw a bit of something peek out from under his shirt sleeve.

"What's that?" he asked, motioning towards the man's upper arm. Tony smiled sheepishly and looked down at it.

"Oh, a bad idea from my teenage years," he said with a little laugh. "You know how kids are; they don't realize tattoos are permanent." Mike let out a barking laugh.

"Oh yeah, I know what you mean," he said. "I got one on… well, nevermind where, but point is I'm always gonna have a little bit of Lisa with me whether we're divorced or not." Booth snorted, and Tony smiled amusedly.

"Yeah, I guess I just thought I was cool back then," he said, pulling up his sleeve and revealing the faded rattlesnake curled up on his bicep.

oOoOoOoOo

Brennan pushed a laden buggy across the steaming asphalt of the Wal-mart parking lot, sweat dripping down her breastbone despite the clouds that were forming ominously overhead. Behind her Charlene huffed and puffed as well, pushing the weight of both the packed buggy and Maya, who at three years old barely fit into the child seat but was easier to push than carry. Leading both of them was Molly, chastising Brandon about 'giving her lip' while Eleanor walked slowly, gazing in awe at the world around her.

"Wow," the little girl said, looking at the rows of cars they walked past. "They're so… wow." Brennan couldn't help but grin as the little girl looked back at her, new pink wire-rimmed glasses adorning her small face, and beamed. She stopped under a small tree that grew in a grassy divider and positively exploded with happiness.

"Wow! Momma, look! Momma!"

"What, baby?" Molly asked as Charlene popped the trunk of her Explorer.

"The leaves!" she exclaimed, pointing up into the tree. "Lookit all the leaves on it! And the branches… wow. Wow!" Molly shook her head and laughed as they loaded the trunk with plastic bags.

"I should'a gotten her those years ago," she said sadly. "God knows what the world looks like to her without 'em. Leaves on the trees… if she can't even see leaves, what's she been lookin' at this whole time?" They loaded up into the vehicle, Brennan squeezed in the back between Maya in a booster seat on her left, and Brandon and Eleanor both strapped into one seatbelt on her right. She cringed when she saw them do this when they first got into the car, thinking of all the possible safety implications, but Molly and Charlene both waved it off as perfectly normal when there were too many kids and not enough seats.

About ten minutes down the road Eleanor slumped over and fell asleep on Brennan's arm, Brandon leaned in the opposite direction against the window. Maya's chin fell down to her chest and she snored in a congested sort of way that made Brennan smile. The sun was dipping lower and lower on their right, casting the sky into brilliant shades of orange and pink, and Brennan had to say that this was one thing Florida had on D.C. if nothing else. As the sun dipped lower, the trees became a dark wall, backlit by the waning dusk light, and the Explorer's automatic lights flicked on.

Brennan fought her drooping eyelids—they had another twenty minutes to go before they were home, and as tired as she was, she knew if she took even that small twenty minute nap it would ruin her ability to fall asleep later that night.

"You think they got Sarah Leigh home yet?" Molly asked Charlene, whose head was also pressed against the glass like Brandon's, eyes barely open. She made an indistinct humming sound. Molly smiled and turned back to the road, the soft roar of the wheels against the asphalt lulling them all deeper and deeper into sleep.

All that changed they heard a series of blasts from the side of the road, and the unmistakable burst of tires blowing out beneath their vehicle. The SUV spun out at fifty miles an hour, hitting the soft, sandy edge of the road, flipping, and rolling multiple times before coming to an upside-down resting position in the ditch on the side of the road.


	30. Even If Things End Up a Bit Too Heavy

**A/N:** Faaail. I actually had most of this chapter written within a few days of posting the last one, but then I got struck down with a horrible virus that had me bedridden for a week. I'm talking IV fluids kind of sick, it was pretty rough. But I'm recovering now and using my time to get this story updated! Especially now that I am employed again (yay!) and starting classes next week (not so yay), I'm going to get really busy really soon, and need to finish this up ASAP. There are 3-4 more chapters, I think... of course we all know how good I am at estimating length. But it's coming to a close, and I hope you like the surprise I've got waiting for you at the end. :) But until then, enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think!

* * *

_Listen, late last night  
I heard the screen door swing  
And a big yellow taxi took my girl away_

_Now don't it always seem to go  
That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone?  
They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot..._

_- Big Yellow Taxi, Counting Crows_

* * *

"What ever happened to Tony and Mary's parents?" Booth asked Mike as they left the decrepit Victorian house behind them, rolling down the unfettered country road towards home. Mike shrugged, rolling his window up as a shower fell on them despite the shining sun peering through the clouds.

"Devil's beatin' his wife," Mike said.

"Huh?" Mike pointed up through the windshield at the sunny rain.

"When the sun shines while it's raining, momma always used to say it was 'cause the devil was beatin' his wife. And I don't know what happened to Mr. and Mrs. Moretti, I just know they died, 'bout ten years ago I guess."

"Was there ever an investigation on it?" Booth asked. Mike wobbled his head, caught somewhere between a yes and no.

"I think they started one," he said, turning past the shady gas station, "but it didn't get very far. There weren't no leads or clues, just two folks killed in their sleep. For a while everyone said Mary did it—you know, went crazy and snapped or somethin'—but I don't believe that."

"What's the deal with her, anyway?" Booth wondered aloud. Mike shrugged again, something he was very good at doing.

"Dunno," he replied. "She used to be fine, perfectly normal, 'til she was about eight or nine. Then I guess somethin' happened and she just… I dunno." He shook his head. "I really don't know what happened to that poor girl, and I don't ask. I just figure it must've been bad to turn a sweet, normal girl into… well, you saw her." Before Booth could reply his phone rang, a number he vaguely recognized, and he flipped it open.

"Booth," he answered.

"Agent Booth? This is Omar Miller, I talked to you early this morning. How are you?"

"Fine," Booth said, recalling his conversation with the tall, dark agent. "Please tell me you've got something good."

"I reckon that depends on what you call good," Agent Miller said. "We had a talk with your medical examiner friend in St. John's County, Dr. Simpson, about Sean Anderson's autopsy. According to her files, _neither_ of the autopsies in McGrady's file are right. She gave me a photocopy of the official documents, I'll have it sent to you."

"Great," Booth said. "What else?"

"Well, we got a quick CODIS match on the DNA from the dog bite," Agent Miller continued. "Get this, it's Carl McVicar. You're familiar with the McVicars, right?" Booth ground his teeth.

"Yeah, I am," he said.

"Well, we got agents all over looking for him," Agent Miller said. "None of the McVicars have surfaced in years, this is the first whiff of any of 'em we've had since Vince went down a few years ago. I understand you had something to do with that too?"

"It was mostly my partner," Booth admitted. "But yeah, we cracked that case back in oh-six."

"Well, we've had a task force tracking leads down in our area on them since then, but haven't had anything solid until now."

"I guess he hasn't shown up at any hospitals yet?" Booth asked.

"Nope," Agent Miller said. "Not yet. But it's just a matter of time, with a bite like that. We'll catch him, and when we do we'll bring all the rest down with him."

"I hope you're right," Booth said. He heard a beep through the line, and looked down to see that Brennan was trying to call through. "Hey look, my partner's calling me, I gotta take that. Call me if there's any more news, alright?"

"Will do," Agent Miller said. "Oh, and your boy Eric Holby's out of jail, cut him loose about an hour ago. Since there's no testimony against him from the guy he shot and all the evidence we got here is bunk, there's no case. Just thought you should know."

"Great, thanks," Booth said, resisting the urge to let out a hoot of success. He hung up with the agent and picked up the other line.

"Booth?" Her voice sounded like a forced calm, edgy and pulled taut.

"What's wrong?" he asked, suddenly feeling his momentary glory plunge into his stomach. "Are you okay?"

"We're… okay," she decided. "There was an accident, our tires got shot out and…"

"What?" Booth sputtered, choking on his own spit at the words 'shot out'. "By who? When? Where? Why didn't you stay home like I told you to? Where are you?"

"If you'd slow down I would tell you," Brennan chastised, and Booth growled. "We're at Shands, everyone is fine, the EMTs are just taking precautionary steps." Booth relayed the information to Mike, told Brennan he would be there shortly, then hung up and slammed his phone angrily against the dashboard.

"Damn it, why didn't they just stay _home_?" he asked aloud. "She knows it's not safe to be out while these guys are unaccounted for, what was she thinking?"

"That's women for you," Mike huffed as he pushed the Bronco to its limits, blowing past the speed limit without hesitation as they flew in the direction of the city for the umpteenth time that week. "They're smarter than us, but they got no sense!"

"She's too risky," Booth said, rubbing his face roughly with his hands. "She always pulls this shit, she doesn't think about her own safety."

"I'm telling you, that's women, _all_ women," Mike said, blowing through a lazy country red light. "They just don't think! Ask 'em to calculate how much money they'll save on coupons and they'll tell you to the penny, but when it comes to basic friggin' safety they don't have a clue."

oOoOoOoOo

"I don't know why he was so upset," Brennan huffed, seated in a chair next to a bed in the hospital's emergency room, feeling that she was spending entirely too much time in this place. Molly sat on the edge of the bed, which was partitioned from the others by a hanging curtain, with her children seated on either side of her.

"That's men for you," Molly said, running her fingers through Eleanor's limp blonde hair. The little girl had a quickly growing knot on her forehead, but a CT scan had cleared her of any head trauma—it was, thankfully, just a bump. "They get all up in arms about the stupidest things, they just don't understand."

"He acts like I was putting myself in danger intentionally by leaving the house," Brennan lamented frustratedly. Molly shook her head.

"They just don't get it," she said. "They think the food gets on the table by magic, they don't realize someone's gotta go to the store and buy it. But when it comes time to go to the store they want you to drop everything and do what _they_ want. They're like overgrown children."

"I thought Booth was going to throw a fit on the phone," Brennan admitted. "He was extremely unhappy."

"He'll get over it," Molly said dismissively. "They always do. They just gotta huff around for a while like big stupid monkeys first."

"Hey," Brandon finally said, annoyed with all the man-bashing talk. "I'm gonna be a man soon, you know."

"I know baby," Molly said, kissing him on the forehead. "And you're gonna be just like that too."

"Will not," he said defiantly.

"Will too," Eleanor piped in.

"Shut up," he said.

"You shut up!" she shot back.

"Both of y'all shut up," a good-natured voice said from behind the curtain. A large hand pulled back the edge of the curtain, revealing a tired but extremely happy looking man with a square jaw and messy auburn hair. Eleanor squealed and leaped off of the bed, throwing herself into her father's arms.

"Daddy!" the little girl yelped, wrapping her arms around his neck as Eric pulled her into a bear hug and Molly burst into prompt tears. He buried his face into the little girl's hair, and from where she sat on the other side of the bed Brennan could see tears falling freely and unashamedly from his eyes. He finally let go of the child and pulled his son into his grasp.

"You took care of your mom and sister while I was gone, huh?" he asked proudly, holding him at arm's length so he could give him a good look. Brandon nodded, sitting up straight.

"Yes sir," he said. Eric rumpled his short hair and grinned.

"Good," he said. He finally turned his eyes to his wife, who had been quietly sobbing for the past minute. She tried to stand up from the bed but her weak knees gave way, with Eric just barely catching her before she hit the ground. He held her upright and pulled her tightly to his chest, resting his chin on top of her springy hair.

"When did you… how did you know we were here?" she asked, barely able to form words.

"They let me go this morning," he answered. "And Seeley called me. Told me what had happened and that y'all were here. I was already on my way to see Sarah Leigh so I wasn't far. God, it's good to see you." Eleanor squeezed herself between her parents, wrapping her arms around her father's waist and pressing her face into his abdomen. Brandon snuck in too, his pre-adolescent need to be 'cool' overtaken by his desire to hug his father.

The four of them stood together like that, holding each other tightly, and Brennan felt tears in her own eyes. She remembered how much she loved her father when she was six years old—how much she still loved him now, resting in a hospital bed several floors overhead. How, at six, there was nowhere in the world she would rather be than in his arms. She saw herself in Eleanor as she nestled into her father's chest, glasses fighting to stay on her face, round cheeks split into a grin to beat all grins. Only one person had a smile that could even compare, and just as she was beginning to wonder where he was, she heard a loud, disgruntled voice carrying across the emergency triage.

"I'm looking for my partner—no, not _that_ kind of… Brennan, Temperance Brennan… what do you mean, _take a seat_? Don't you see the badge?" Deciding it better to find him herself before he lost his cool completely, Brennan excused herself from behind the curtains and found him gesturing very angrily in the face of a large male orderly, Mike standing hesitantly at his side.

"Booth!" she hollered, catching his attention. He turned and saw her, and even from across the room she could see his shoulders sag with immediate relief. He crossed the stretch of linoleum in long, quick strides and when he reached her, pulled her into a hug so tight that it physically lifted her from the ground.

"Thank God," was all he could manage, whispering it repeatedly into her hair. Finally he let her go, holding her at arm's length and shaking his head. "You know," he said, tone still relieved, "for a genius, you're a real idiot."

She opened her mouth in a mildly insulted expression, but before she could actually say anything to the contrary he sealed her lips with a kiss. When he finally pulled back her look of indignation had been replaced with a soft smile.

"Seeley." Booth looked past Brennan at the man standing just outside the curtain, little girl hanging like a monkey off of his shoulders. Booth gave him an acknowledging nod and smile, which was returned.

"Eric," he said. Eric set Eleanor down on the ground, then closed the gap between them and took Booth's hand, shaking it.

"Thanks, man," he said in a low voice. Booth shook his head.

"Don't thank me, I didn't do anything." He leaned his head towards Brennan. "She's the one who noticed the discrepancy on Sean's autopsy reports, she's the reason the sheriff's department went under investigation and all the evidence got thrown out." Eric grinned at Brennan, then in one swift motion grabbed her up in a bear hug and spun her around. She was barely able to stay on her feet when she landed back on the ground, laughing.

"You're welcome," she managed, taken aback by the man's display. He was still grinning, shaking his head.

"You just don't know," he said, sighing in a relieved sort of way. "When you think you're gonna be locked up forever, that you'll never see your kids again, or your wife… you just don't know how it feels to walk out of that jail cell. To hug your baby girl an' know they're okay. I can't ever repay y'all for that."

"Yes, you can," Booth said suddenly. Eric gave him a puzzled look, as did Brennan. Booth reached down into his pocket and pulled out an engraved silver billfold, the one he had been carrying around with him for the past several days, with the initials _C.M._ etched into the metal. _C.M._ Carl McVicar.

"You saw this guy," Booth said, holding up the billfold. "He's the one who threatened your family." Immediately Eric's face reddened, eyes narrowing angrily at the memory. "He's also the guy who tried to kill Sarah Leigh."

"How do you know that?" Brennan asked, not having been filled in on the latest updates.

"CODIS got a match on the DNA from Buckshot's mouth," he said. "It's Carl McVicar, C.M., it's a match. Nobody's seen this guy in years, though… until now. You can give us a face, a face we can plaster all over the state of Florida."

"You can do that?" Eric asked.

"I can't," Booth said, pulling out his phone. "But I know someone who can."


	31. It's a Beautiful Lie

**A/N:** Crazy, crazy life. Don't you love when your life goes from zero to 90 in approximately three days? I actually wrote most of this chapter almost two weeks ago, shortly after I posted the last one... then I started getting orientated (I don't think that's actually a word but I like it) at work, then started fall semester... basically life is just doing what it always does, which is kicking my ass, lol. Fortunately for you I tend to do three things when I'm stressed out: sleep, bake, and write. You may not be able to benefit from my naps or banana bread (which I made last week and it was excellent if I do say so myself), but you can enjoy the latter of the three. :)

There should be two more chapters to this story... should be. The way it's currently planned out in my head, there are two more. But at any rate, enjoy this one now, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand  
Workin' in the dark against your fellow man  
But as sure as God made black and white  
What's down in the dark will be brought to the light..._

_- God's Gonna Cut You Down, Johnny Cash_

* * *

Later that evening, Brennan sat on the folded-out couch with Sarah Leigh, who had been released after they left the emergency room. Though she had a few covered stitches put into her upper abdomen and walked in a slow, tender way, her color was good and her sense of humor was still intact.

"Hey Temperance," Sarah Leigh piped as soon as _Dirty Jobs_ cut to a commercial. "Will you go get me a coke out of the fridge?" Brennan nodded, lifting herself up off the lumpy bed.

"What kind?" she asked, having learned that 'coke' was not a brand but a blanket term for all carbonated beverages. Sarah Leigh grinned.

"You learn quick," she observed. "Uhm, a ginger ale please. My stomach's still a little off."

Brennan exited into the kitchen, where she saw a little person standing on a dining chair, working on a counter in the far corner of the small kitchen so that she could not be seen from the living room. Her pink frames slid down her impossibly small nose as she worked diligently, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration. The child was mixing fist-fulls of Oreo cookies into a large bowl of Rocky Road ice cream with her bare hands, a spoon sticking out of the icy gallon container that slowly melted on the counter. She hummed quietly to herself, completely unaware of Brennan's presence in the kitchen.

It was only when she turned to grab the bottle of chocolate syrup that her round blue eyes met Brennan's. Eleanor became very still, as if Brennan were a T. Rex and could not see her so long as she didn't make any sudden movements. She grabbed her bottom lip between her small front teeth, eyes trailing slowly from Brennan's face, down to the bowl of ice cream on the counter, back up to Brennan.

"Uh," the little girl said, grappling mentally for an exit. Her lips turned upward into a sheepish smile, and her shoulders scrunched up towards her ears. Brennan now understood why Molly often lamented that Eleanor 'got away with murder'—she was so adorable that it was difficult to keep a stern face with her. Her new glasses and the residual bump on her forehead from the accident made her, if possible, even more endearing.

"Eleanor," Brennan said, hearing her voice crack in amusement. She tried to keep her lips flat, but the corners of her mouth curled up against her will. "It's not even dinnertime yet."

"It's not for me," the little girl blurted, shaking her round face insistently. "I was makin' it for Sarah Leigh. She don't feel good, and chocolate always makes me feel better when I'm sick."

"Is that so?" Brennan said, taking the chocolate syrup bottle out of the child's sticky ice-cream hands and running it under the faucet, rinsing the residue off the sides.

"Uh huh," Eleanor said as Brennan grabbed her around the middle, holding her up so she could reach the water, rinsing her hands clean of the chocolatey mess. "An' you know, she mighta shared."

"I see," Brennan said, losing control of an amused snort. She set the girl down and proceeded to clean up the mess while she watched, bagging the remaining Oreos and placing the partially-liquidated tub of ice cream back into the freezer. "Well, this certainly has a lot of chocolate in it."

"Yep," the child said.

"And while I'm not so sure this would settle well on Sarah Leigh's stomach," Brennan continued, "I do think she would appreciate if you brought her this can of ginger ale." Brennan removed the can from the fridge and handed it to the little girl, who trotted off into the living room with it. Brennan stared down at the bowl of ice cream, unsure of what to do with it. There was really no point in wasting it…

"Bones, what are you eating? We haven't even had dinner yet." Booth entered the house through the kitchen door with Mike, John, and Eric. The four of them had gone on a manly expedition to replace the locks on Mema's doors after she realized that one of her house keys was unaccounted for, and had just returned. Brennan looked up guiltily from the ice cream she had half-way eaten, leaning against the kitchen counter, bowl in hand.

"I didn't make it," she said. "Eleanor did."

"Sure, Bones, blame it on the kid," Booth said, rolling his eyes. "It's okay, I get the whole women and chocolate thing, that's just a… are those crushed up Oreos?" He reached for her spoon but she pulled the bowl out of his reach, giving him a sour look.

"Get your own," she said, spurring snorts of laughter from her male cousins. Booth huffed.

"Fine, be that way. Oh, by the way, I called Cam on our way back; we're going to set up the feed with Angela so Eric can describe Carl McVicar to her."

"Great," Brennan said, struggling to swallow a particularly large mouthful of ice cream. Booth gave her a bemused look and shook his head, muttering something incoherent as he left her in the kitchen. She polished off the rest of the bowl and met them in Eleanor's room, where Booth was tweaking the satellite connection to the lab. Eric sat back on the bed and watched as Booth fought with the remote access key.

"Almost… there," he said, leaning back as the Jeffersonian's logo popped up on the bright screen. Within thirty seconds it cut to a live image that Brennan recognized as being her office, viewed from the coffee table. Her heart ached as she took in the sight of her couch and the glass wall behind it, exposing the platform and the high beamed ceilings. She hadn't realized just how homesick she really was, but she wanted very much to be back in her lab.

"Hey," Angela said, sliding into the frame as she took a seat on the couch. "Can you see me?"

"I can," Booth replied. "Can you see us?" Angela furrowed her thin brows as she fiddled with something just off the corner of the screen, then her eyes widened as they apparently came into view.

"Oh sweetie!" she said, apparently looking completely past Booth to Brennan in the background. "How have you been?"

"Uhm," Brennan began, not sure how to answer that question. "Well, I've been better, but all things considered we are doing well. How are things at the lab?"

"Terrible," Angela lamented. "We miss you guys so much, it's just not the same without you. It's been almost two weeks, when are you coming home?"

"Soon," Booth said, interjecting. "Sooner if you can help us out." Angela nodded, briefly holding up the sketch pad that was resting in her lap.

"Cam told me you had someone get a good look of one of the McVicars and needed a sketch done," she said. "She also told me that there have been some crazy things happening down there. Is everyone okay? You two look fine, but…"

"Everyone is okay," Booth said, shaking his head. "Everyone's home except Max, but he's doing fine. We'll all be home soon. Don't worry about that—right now I just need you to draw, okay?" Angela could sense the tenseness in Booth's voice, the urgency, and she nodded.

"Okay," she said. "So who am I talking to?" Booth stepped aside so that Eric could come into view, and Brennan couldn't help but notice her best friend's trademark eyebrow waggle when she saw the tall, muscularly built man lounging back on the small child's bed, twiddling his thumbs boredly from having been discluded from the conversation up to that point. He looked up and smiled when he saw Angela's face on screen.

"Hi there," he said politely, sitting up and leaning in on his knees.

"Well hello," Angela said, biting her bottom lip as a means to try and halt the progression of the grin that was quickly spreading across her face. "Who are you?"

"Married," Booth interjected. "He's married, his name is Eric Holby, he's Brennan's cousin. The guy who cornered him at the bar? Carl McVicar. He spent at least fifteen minutes with him, got a good look at his face, so I need you to draw him for us. Please."

"Alright, alright," Angela said, brushing off Booth's testiness. "It's nice to meet you, Eric."

"Likewise," he said, and Brennan caught Angela giving an involuntary shiver before taking her sketch pencil in hand and flipping to a fresh page in her sketch book.

"Okay," Angela said, placing the tip of her pencil down on the paper. "Usually this works best if we have some privacy, so if you two could just…" She gave Booth and Brennan a 'skedaddle' look, and they did, leaving the door cracked as they exited into the hallway.

They listened to Eric meander through his description, struggling with some of the details as Angela gently prompted him, prodding his brain to remember the slight, but important, defining features of the face—the curl of the lips, the angle of the brow, the depth of the eyes, the slope of the forehead. There was a moment of silence, followed by a heavy sigh, and what seemed to be an understanding hum from Angela on screen. _I know it's hard to remember,_ Brennan heard her say sympathetically, _so take your time. Just shut your eyes and try to see him in front of you. Put yourself back at the bar, holding your drink. See him sit down by you… see his face…_

Brennan had never actually had the opportunity to listen in on Angela as she worked with a witness, and the way she gently guided them through their memory was impressive even to the anthropologist, who generally put little value on the emotional aspect of casework. That was Booth's job, to elicit people's emotions. Hers was to elicit the facts—cold, calculable truth—from the physical evidence.

Angela's work was something completely separate from either of them, but leaning more towards Booth's nature. She sounded almost nurturing as she encouraged Eric to pick a nose, to describe its features—the length of the nostrils, their angle, the bulb of the nose, where it sat on the face, anything defining about its nature—instead of impatiently demanding a description as either Booth or Brennan might be tempted to.

While Booth worked with emotions, he tended to pound them out of an individual, using pressure and heat the way an ironsmith shapes a horseshoe. Eventually they would mold under his demands, or crack completely, spilling forth what weighed most heavily on them like a pressure release valve. The way Angela worked was different. It was sensitive and soft, delicately encouraging information out the way you might try to lure a stray dog with treats and gentle reassurance. She was much less heavy handed than Booth in regards to emotive information, and while her method may have taken longer, it was equally as effective when it came right down to catching the criminal.

Finally Eric pulled the door open, letting Booth and Brennan back into the small pink room. Angela was still in the screen, intently focused on some last-minute shading.

"I think I've got it," she said, setting the pencil aside on the couch cushion. She turned the sketch pad to face the screen, obscuring the view of her face with it. "Eric, does that look right?"

Booth was vaguely aware of Eric nodding next to him. A ringing in his ears and a hot-and-cold tingling sensation overwhelmed him as he stared into the slate gray face on the paper. The narrow-set eyes and tapering nose, the receding hairline offsetting what might have been an otherwise youthful face.

"Booth, are you okay?" Brennan asked, having noticed the sudden, rigid change in her partner's stature.

"We've got him," he said hotly, feeling fierce anger surge through him. How he hadn't seen it before, how it had slipped past him completely, he had no idea. But now he knew, as he stared into the face of Tony Moretti.


	32. Capsized, Erring On the Edge of Safe

**A/N:** Look, I didn't wait two weeks to update this time! Although with so few reviews on the last chapter, I'm not sure if anyone actually cares whether I'm updating or not. Maybe that is y'all's way of punishing me for taking so long to update. With the end so near, I am trying to get this puppy wrapped up and put away before school gets much more overwhelming. This chapter almost finishes things... almost. But as you will see, there are still some loose ends to be tied up, so this is not the last. Anyway, enjoy this chapter, and let me know what you think!

* * *

_I went out walking  
Through streets paved with gold  
Lifted some stones  
Saw the skin and bones  
Of a city without a soul_

_I went out walking  
Under an atomic sky  
Where the ground won't turn  
And the rain it burns  
Like the tears when I said goodbye_

_Yeah I went with nothing  
Nothing but the thought of you  
I went wandering..._

_- The Wanderer, Johnny Cash and U2_

* * *

Booth grabbed Mike by the shirt as he tore through the living room, dragging him out the front door with him as Brennan hastily followed. Sarah Leigh and Eleanor simply watched from where they sat on the couch as the three stormed out of the house, Mike caught completely unawares, the door banging shut behind them.

"What the hell?" Mike said, wrenching himself free of Booth's grasp. Booth yanked the keys to his SUV out of his pocket and tossed them at Mike's chest, the man barely snagging them on the tips of his fingers.

"It's Tony," Booth growled. "Tony Moretti, it's an alias, he's a McVicar."

"What?" Mike said with disbelief. "No, no way, not Tony. I've known him my whole life, I'd know if he was a killer."

"Just drive us to the Moretti place," Booth said, giving the man a little shove in the direction of the driver's side door. He was not in the mood to discuss the possibilities—he had seen the face staring back at him from Angela's sketch pad, and she did not make mistakes. As far as he was concerned, that was all he needed.

"I'm telling you, you've got it wrong," Mike said as he cranked the engine, Booth taking shotgun while Brennan climbed into the back seat. "Tony's a good guy, real quiet, he wouldn't hurt anybody. Besides, didn't you say the McVicars were brothers? All Tony's got is Mary."

"No, Carl is a cousin," Booth explained impatiently, wishing Mike would drive faster as he navigated the SUV down the pitted dirt road. "Harvey, Rick, Vince, and Dave were the brothers, Carl was their cousin." Booth felt the gears spinning in his head, every piece of the puzzle rapidly falling into place. "Vince and his brothers were from the Midwest, but Max said they had people down in Florida, that's how they kept Ruth and Max in the Strong Arm gang… they said they had people down here and they'd go after Ruth's family if they left the gang. God, it was Carl's parents, I'd bet you anything. His cousin Carl, he was the one down in Florida, the 'people' the McVicars had here."

"But it just don't make sense," Mike argued still, turning them down a paved county road as the sun dipped towards the opposite horizon. "Carl grew up here, he's no criminal, he's just a good ol' boy who grew up farmin' hay and pigs and… oh God." Mike stopped short, suddenly recalling the details from Max's discussion the week prior. "Oh God, they were pig farmers, all of 'em, weren't they?" Booth nodded, his jaw clenched so tightly that the pressure threatened to crack his molars. He felt the SUV accelerate as Mike slammed his foot down on the pedal, sending them whipping around the corner at the abandoned gas station, standing ominous and unlit in the waning summer light.

From the back seat of the SUV Brennan could only see Booth's face in partial profile. His brows were pulled down, jaw tight, lips pressed firmly together. He appeared to be concentrating intensely on the road ahead of them, but she knew he likely was not. There was something in his eyes that was beyond the road, that was seeing further than she or Mike. He was calculating—he was counting his paces, ten steps ahead, so that when the time came he would know exactly what he was going to do and how. Whether it had been programmed into him by the FBI or the armed services, or by living with a volatile alcoholic, or whether it was simply his nature, she couldn't know. But she knew that was what he was doing; while Mike was driving and she was watching, he was strategizing. He was, as she had occasionally heard him referred to around the lab, 'the man with the plan.'

But nobody could've planned what—or rather, who—they saw walking along the side of the road up ahead, light blue nightgown floating away from her thin frame in a humid breeze. Her dark hair was tangled and spread over her shoulders, her arms were wrapped tightly around her midsection as if she were freezing in the summer heat. Her feet were bare against the grass, still slick from the afternoon rain shower, and they could see the vacancy in her face as they approached her, slowing the SUV to a halt.

Booth opened the door and stepped out slowly, squinting through the quickly falling darkness as if he wasn't sure of what he was seeing. But she was there, as real as they were, and when her eyes caught his Booth could see the very real fear in them. She was like a lost animal, a frightened dog found far from home, tail tucked between its legs, shivering anxiously.

The way she stared at him without blinking her large, almost black eyes unnerved Booth, catching him off-guard in what had been a dogged mission. Finally she could stare no more and her eyes began to flit around, as if searching for moths in the darkness that had all but taken over.

"Mary?" The sound of his voice drew her eyes back to his face, the orbs snapping suddenly onto him as if she had just realized he was there. Her breathing was rapid and shallow, thin nostrils flaring as she kept her cracked lips pressed together. She wrapped her arms, if possible, even more tightly around herself.

"Is that Mary Moretti?" Mike asked from within the car.

"The sister?" Brennan asked. Booth shushed them both harshly, then turned his attention back towards the terrified woman, who had begun rocking on her heels.

"Mary, it's me, Agent Booth," he said in a calm, slow way. "Remember me?" She halted her rocking and stood perfectly still in the darkness, near-translucent skin seeming to radiate even without light. "I'm a good guy, okay? I'm not gonna hurt you. Are you okay?" Every word was slow and precise, as if speaking to a child or someone with very limited English skills. He had never actually heard her speak—for all he knew, she could have limited English skills.

She did not answer, but seemed to survey him carefully. He could feel her eyes travelling across his features, all the way down to his feet, then back up to his face, eyebrows in particular which she noted with concern. The tenseness in her forehead began to mirror that in his.

"I think he's dying." The words came out of her small mouth suddenly, and Booth almost thought he had imagined them. Her voice was not at all what he had expected it to be—it was husky and cracked, not the light, airy sound he had expected to come from such a petite wisp of a woman.

"Your brother?" Booth asked, and she nodded, then began to cry. If it were not for the light coming from inside the vehicle that illuminated her face, he would not have known she was crying—the tears slid down her cheeks soundlessly, and her face and posture did not change in the slightest. Her shoulders did not stoop, her features did not scrunch up. It was as if her eyes were simply leaking.

"Booth, we need to hurry; he's probably gone septic from the dog bite," Brennan noted with quiet urgency. He nodded, stepping towards Mary slowly and daring to put his hand on her arm. She tensed beneath his touch and took in a sharp, almost choked breath. He immediately withdrew his hand.

"Come with us," he said, holding his hand out towards the front passenger's seat. "Please." She did not move, or even acknowledge that Booth had said anything to her at all—it was as if his touch had deactivated her, sent her spiraling down into the reaches of her consciousness, leaving the rest of them in her wake.

"Mary, if you don't get in the car and come with us, your brother will die," Brennan said firmly. Booth gave her a scandalized look, but oddly enough it seemed to be the only thing that broke the barrier into wherever Mary had gone mentally, because she took a few hesitant steps towards the vehicle, then stepped up into the passenger's seat, sitting up rigidly straight and folding her hands in her lap. Booth shut the door and climbed into the back with Brennan, and they were off.

There were no lights on outside of the Victorian-era replica as they approached it in the now pitch blackness, their only guiding light from the high beams of the SUV. Mike slowly trundled down the path that cut a swath through the woods that shielded the home—the home of a criminal, of a killer, and yet somehow of a doting older brother—from view. When they parked the vehicle, Mary did not get out with them. She sat, still as rigid as a board, staring straight out into the darkness with deeply furrowed brows but oddly blank eyes.

Booth had to force himself to look away and focus on the task at hand, apprehending Tony Moretti, AKA Carl McVicar. The front door of the house was pushed open, with no visible light emitting from its innards. Booth withdrew his gun from the holster, thankful for his years of training that had conditioned him to never leave home without it, and entered the house behind the pointed weapon. Brennan and Mike followed in quick step after him, all of them silent. It was Booth who finally broke their silence after he flicked on a light switch, illuminating the hallway, his voice echoing throughout the cavernous, quiet, dusty structure.

"Tony?" he called out. Nothing. No moaning, no footsteps, not even the slightest sound. He felt his stomach tighten—what if they were too late, and the septicemia had already killed him? All of the vital information Booth so badly wanted to extract from him—the location of the remaining McVicar brothers, his involvement with the murders, the extent of the underground ring he was a part of—would die with him. Booth shook his head. He couldn't possibly have gotten that sick, that fast. It was not even six hours ago that he and Mike had sat at the table with him and had a conversation, and he had seemed fine. Tired, bordering exhausted, but otherwise healthy. He wouldn't die. He couldn't.

"Tony!" he called out again, this time bordering a yell. "Carl! It's over, we know who you are. If you can, come out with your hands up. If you can't, tell us where you are." They all pursed their lips, listening into the empty darkness for any sign of life.

Finally they heard it—a guttural moan from the upper floor. Booth ran up the stairs in twos, tailed by Brennan and Mike, gun still leading the way. There was no such thing as too safe; after all, it could have been a clever ruse to get them into the house unaware, to finish them for good. Booth knew in his gut that wasn't the case, though—Mary was ill, truly mentally ill, and there was no way she could participate in something like that. She had gone for help for her sick brother, and it was only by grace that they had found her when they did.

"Carl?" There was another groan, an almost primal sound. It came from the right, where the staircase veered off suddenly and ended in a room at the end of the short hallway. The door was cracked, and there was a soft light emitting from the room that they had not been able to see from the front of the house. Booth held the gun steady as they slowly progressed down the hall, then took a breath and stepped through the doorway.

Carl McVicar lay on a single bed in the corner of the small room, flat on his back. A pile of blankets had been kicked to the ground, and he wore only a pair of boxer shorts. Booth could just see the edge of a very dark, swollen wound peering out from beneath the hem of the shorts. The small bedside lamp illuminated the sheen of sweat that covered him from head to toe, and his face was contorted with pain. He let out another moan and writhed, and Booth could see even from across the room that he was shaking. He was very, very ill.

"Bones, call 911," Booth whispered as he turned to his partner, who had stepped into the doorway to see for herself. "He really is sick, he needs an ambulance now." She nodded and stepped back into the hallway, pulling out her cell phone and dialing for help.

Booth holstered his gun, knowing he would not need it, and crossed the room to Carl McVicar's bedside. The man opened his eyes and stared lazily at the agent who stood over him, not seeming to be able to focus them directly on his face. Booth looked down at his leg, pulling up the edge of the shorts so he could see the extent of the damage.

Agent Miller had been right—rather than going to the emergency room, Carl had tried to stitch the wound himself, apparently with fishing line from the looks of things. He had done a poor job, and the wound was still partially open, now oozing a thick yellow-green discharge. The entire area around the open gash was dark purple and swollen, and Booth could feel the heat resonating from it even as he held his hand over it without touching it. Something had gotten into the wound and quickly taken over the man's body, and now he was paying the price. Though he knew it wasn't right, Booth found himself a little pleased by the man's obvious suffering—he had killed, he had hurt so many people, he deserved to suffer.

Within half an hour an ambulance and several FBI officers from the Jacksonville field office had arrived on scene, illuminating the dark property with flashing red and blue lights. Two paramedics carried Carl out of the house on a gurney, his wrists cuffed to the guard rails. Even as he was rushed off, Mary still did not move from her seat in Booth's SUV. She had remained there for almost forty-five minutes, seemingly catatonic. Booth was standing at the base of the porch steps, arms crossed over his chest, watching her from a distance when he felt someone clap him on the back.

"Congratulations, Agent Booth," Agent Miller said, white teeth flashing in the darkness. "Another McVicar arrest, you're really on a roll."

"Thanks," he said distractedly. "I just hope he doesn't die before he can give up some more information about the rest of them."

"He might not even if he does live," Agent Miller pointed out.

"I think he will, for a plea bargain," Booth said. "We've got the right chips." Agent Miller looked out at what Booth saw, surveying the pale, unmoving woman.

"That's his sister?" he asked. Booth nodded.

"Mary Moretti," he said. "Or, that's what she goes by. Don't know what her real name is."

"Carl Senior and Cecile McVicar, their parents, fell off the map in the early eighties," Agent Miller said. "Totally new identities. Your boy Carl was born in 1979. He's not a first cousin to the other McVicar brothers, he's a second cousin—his parents, Carl Senior and Cecile, were their first cousins. He was probably only four or five when they changed their identities, so depending on how old she is…"

"She's twenty-eight," Booth said, remembering that she was John's age. "She was born in '81."

"I think Carl and Cecile went under in eighty three," Agent Miller said. "Later than their cousins. I'll have to check my records to be sure, but that sounds right. If that's the case, she had to have a different name before. We'll dig it up." Booth nodded and after a few more congratulatory words, Agent Miller left the scene. As the Jacksonville agent left, Brennan approached Booth, not looking at him but also at Mary.

"You know, she's not dependent," Brennan said. Booth looked down at her.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"The FBI office called down adult protective services, Florida DCF, about what to do with Mary. They thought Carl had power of attorney because of her condition, but he doesn't," she said. "She isn't on record as having any sort of mental disability or condition requiring the supervision of her care. She's an independent adult."

"Really," Booth said, surprised by that information. After what few interactions he'd had with Mary so far, and what he knew of her living situation, he had assumed that her brother had been granted guardianship to care for her.

"Yeah," Brennan said. "Apparently Carl was just taking care of her, they didn't go through the legal proceedings for adult guardianship through DCF. I suppose now knowing who he is, that makes sense." Booth nodded—it definitely wouldn't be prudent for a criminal living under an alias to subject himself to more government paperwork than entirely necessary.

"Carl and Mary are second cousins to Vince and his brothers," Booth told her, recalling what he had just learned from Agent Miller. "Their parents went underground in '83. Mary was born in '81, so she was two at the time. Agent Miller is going to try to dig up her real name when he gets back to the field office."

"Mary Moretti is her real name," Brennan said darkly.

"But she was born in…"

"Her name's Mary as much as mine is Temperance Brennan." He suddenly realized the implications of what he had been arguing, and mentally kicked himself in the ass. He turned his gaze back to the woman seated in his car, independent and very much alone, and nodded.

"You're right," he said, watching her sadly and wondering why, with a murderer in custody and a years-old feud potentially ended, he felt that gnawing pain in the pit of his stomach every time he looked at her as if he had just done something terribly wrong. "Her name is Mary."


	33. I Swore That I Would Let You Down

**A/N:** Okay, so I'm a liar. I said there would only be one more chapter to this story, but there are two. I got about 4,000 words into this chapter and realized there was no way I could wrap it up in a decent amount of space. Since I didn't want you to have to read a marathon chapter, I stopped just shy of 5,000 words and am going to wrap up the last of the story in the next, final chapter. Really. Until then, enjoy the big, final reveal and let me know what you think! And by the way, I wrote a one shot inspired by the following lyrics about Booth's childhood, called "Stains of Time." If you haven't read it, maybe you should. ;) Now that I'm done shamelessly plugging my own one shots... enjoy!

* * *

_I wear this crown of thorns  
Upon my liar's chair  
Full of broken thoughts  
I cannot repair  
Beneath the stains of time  
The feelings disappear  
You are someone else  
I am still right here_

_What have I become?  
My sweetest friend  
Everyone I know  
Goes away in the end  
And you could have it all  
My empire of dirt  
I will let you down  
I will make you hurt... _

_- Hurt, covered by Johnny Cash (original by Nine Inch Nails)_

* * *

Three days later, Booth and Brennan made the long, familiar drive up to Shands hospital in Jacksonville, the bright blue morning sky unfettered by clouds. Light poured into the SUV as Brennan leaned her head against the sun-baked window, disposable coffee cup from their stop at the gas station in hand, smiling to herself for no particular reason. She didn't even notice the expression she was making until Booth commented about it as they merged off the freeway into city traffic.

"You look happy about something," he said, giving her a funny look.

"Hmm?" she said, taking a sip of her coffee and looking at him. He smiled.

"You," he repeated. "You look like you're in a good mood about something." She swallowed the coffee, which was in actuality cheap and sludgy but tasted great that morning, and nodded.

"Well, my father is leaving the hospital today," she pointed out. "That's reason enough to be in a good mood, I think." Booth grinned, leaning in to kiss her. As he did he forgot what his hands were doing, though, and several angry honks from drivers in the adjacent lane reminded him.

"Shit," he swore as he pulled them back into the proper lane.

"Watch the road!" she reprimanded, rolling her eyes but unable to conceal her smile. "You seem a bit distracted this morning as well."

"I'm excited," he said, and he looked it, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel energetically. "Not just about your dad either; Carl is conscious and talking. That means I can finally question him."

"You think he'll confess?" she asked. Booth shrugged as he took his parking ticket from the automated machine outside of the parking garage, driving into the darkness as the crossbar lifted to grant him access.

"Maybe," he said. "He might want to bargain, because of his sister, so who knows. We'll see when we get there, I guess."

"Today is the end of her stay, isn't it?" she asked. Booth nodded, wedging the SUV into a narrow parking space and cutting off the engine.

"Yep," he said. "Agent Miller said Florida's mental health act, the Baker Act, says you can only be involuntarily hospitalized for up to 72 hours. After that, unless you're so unstable that you can't make decisions for yourself, you can leave."

"Who else would there be to make decisions for her besides Carl?" Brennan asked, stepping into the cool, moist garage air.

"Nobody," Booth said. Their footsteps echoed as they made their way through the garage, Booth resisting the urge to spring off the heels of his feet with each step. Today really was a good day—Max was being released, he could press Carl McVicar Jr. for the answers he needed, and tomorrow the three of them could get on a plane and finally go home. "Mary doesn't have anyone but Carl. The FBI guys couldn't find anyone even remotely related to them, other than the McVicar brothers who are still unaccounted for, Dave and Harvey."

"Somehow I don't see them coming forward to claim stewardship over her mental health," Brennan noted as they stepped into the blasting A/C of the hospital atrium. Booth shook his head.

"No," he said. "Definitely not."

"So they'll just let her go?" Brennan asked. Booth pressed the button for the ICU floor, where they would find Carl.

"Well, I did some reading, after what Agent Miller told me," Booth said. "In Florida if someone is Baker Acted, there are a couple of options. They can be released after 72 hours if they're stable, or if they're not the hospital can petition for longer involuntary hospitalization or forced outpatient care, like a residential treatment center. Or a person can choose to stay in treatment."

"Will they petition for longer involuntary hospitalization if she isn't a danger to herself or to other people?" Brennan asked as the elevator doors opened. "She isn't dangerous, she's just…" Brennan trailed off, unable to describe what exactly Mary _was_.

"They can if she can't or won't take care of herself," Booth said, feeling an ages-old pang in his gut that he tried to ignore. "If someone is considered safe but self-neglectful, the hospital can petition to keep them longer, or send them to a residential care place where someone else can take care of them. I don't know if Mary can take care of herself."

"I wonder what's wrong with her," Brennan finally mused aloud as they approached the nurse's station. Booth shook his head sadly.

"I really don't know," he said. "I hope the doctors can figure it out, though. She needs help." At that point they were able to flag down a nurse, who pointed them in the direction of Carl's room. As they walked up to the door it opened, and an extraordinarily tired looking doctor stepped out.

"Oh, hi there," the man sighed, looking them over briefly before giving Brennan a peculiar look of recognition. "I remember you. You're Max Keenan's daughter, aren't you?"

"Dr. Sedarsky," Brennan said, taking the hand offered to her and shaking it. "You were the one who operated on my father, right?"

"I was," he said. "I hear he's going home soon?"

"Today, actually," she said. The doctor smiled kindly.

"That's great," he said. "But he's not on this floor, what brings you here?" Booth flipped out his badge, showing it to the doctor.

"I'm here to question Carl McVicar," he explained. "A doctor called me last night and said he was up and talking?" Dr. Sedarsky nodded.

"He is," he said. "I was actually just in there checking on his leg, or what's left. We had to amputate most of it. I performed the emergency surgery when he first came in. He was lucky you found him when you did… another few hours and he likely would've died."

"What was the infection caused by?" Brennan asked. "Booth said he was fine that afternoon when he talked to him, but by that night he was dying."

"Well," Dr. Sedarsky began, "there's a bacteria here that grows in the river, it usually doesn't affect people but sometimes—"

"Oh my God!" Booth burst out, interrupting the doctor's explanation. "It's that necto-whatever, isn't it? The flesh-eating bacteria?" Dr. Sedarsky gave him a puzzled half-smile, and nodded.

"Yes, actually, it is," he said. "Necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly known as the flesh-eating bacteria. It doesn't really eat the flesh, though. But anyway, it's likely that the dog that bit him was harboring a small amount of the bacteria in its mouth, from drinking the water in the river maybe, and when he bit Mr. McVicar he transmitted the bacteria into the wound. Necrotizing fasciitis is one of the most aggressive bacterial infections there is—it can kill in days, even hours. When Mr. McVicar was first admitted, I would've put his survival chances at maybe fifteen percent. Now that the antibiotics are starting to work and the leg is gone, I'll give him eighty-five."

"So he's going to recover?" Brennan asked. Dr. Sedarsky nodded.

"Most likely," he said. "Barring some collapse of his immune response, which is looking fairly good right now, he should walk out of here. Well, not walk, but you know… maybe hop." The doctor laughed at his own comment, then shook his head. "It's been a long night. I'm glad your father is doing well; if you have any questions, page the attending. I'm going home." The doctor left and Booth shook his head, wide eyed and looking scandalized.

"Molly said nobody ever gets sick from that stuff!" Brennan snorted.

"She said infections were rare, she didn't say they never happened."

"Bones, I _swam_ in that water!"

"A week ago!" He gave her a narrow look, which was meant to sting but only served to amuse her.

"I appreciate your concern," he sniped as he knocked on the room door, waiting a second before opening it.

Carl McVicar sat partially upright in his hospital bed, leaned back into a pile of white pillows that surrounded his head like a halo of clouds. Oxygen tubes snaked from his nostrils, around the sides of his head, behind his ears and to a tank at his bedside. Numerous IVs stuck out from the veins on his hands, a forest of fluid and antibiotic bags hanging on stands beside him. Booth's eyes fell to the blanket that covered his legs—rather, leg now. They could see the shape of the left leg, but the right one ended in a stump just beneath the hip, leaving an eerie vacancy under the blanket where the leg should've been.

"They cut it off," Carl said, seeing Booth's eyes tracing the stump. "With that kind of bacteria, it was me or the leg."

"Right," Booth said, an involuntary shiver traveling up his spine as he thought about the idea of flesh eating bacteria wasting away his own limbs. He felt the strong urge to take a shower.

"Where's my sister, Agent Booth?" Carl asked after a brief silence between them, eyes beseeching the agent. "Nobody will tell me anything about Mary, where she is or who's taking care of her. I just want… I just want to know she's okay." Tears leaked out of his narrow eyes and ran down his pale cheeks. Booth felt a surge of sympathy for the man, even though he knew he was staring at a killer.

"She's okay, Carl," Booth said, taking a seat in a chair next to the bed. Brennan crossed the room and sat down on the other side, watching with interest as Booth did the talking. "She was taken to the psych ward at the hospital; they've had her on a 72-hour hold for the past few days."

"What's gonna happen to her?" Carl asked weakly, terrified of the answer. Booth pursed his lips and shrugged his shoulders lamely.

"I really don't know," he said. "We haven't been to see her. I may or may not have to question her regarding the case, depending on her state of mental stability. If they assess her as being too mentally unstable, she won't be able to testify either way, for or against." A pained look crossed Carl's face that had nothing to do with his physical state.

"Please don't drag Mary into this, Agent Booth," he said. "She's been through enough, please… just don't. I'm not gonna fight this, I'm gonna confess. Please just leave her alone." Booth nodded slowly, taking a deep breath before he leaned back into the chair, relaxing his shoulders. This wouldn't be a fight after all.

"So you know the charges being filed against you, then?" he asked. Carl nodded.

"Four counts of murder in the first degree," he said. Booth gave him a puzzled look.

"No, three," he said. "Abby, Robbie, and Laura Armstrong." Carl shook his head.

"If I'm gonna come clean, I'm coming clean to everything," he said, tears still flowing freely down his face as his voice cracked. "I… I was responsible for what happened to Sean Anderson, too. I killed him. I'm so sorry." Booth cleared his throat.

"So that's a full confession to all four murders, then?" he said. Carl nodded.

"Full," he said. "I don't need a lawyer, I don't want one. I deserve whatever I get, I know I do. You just gotta know… I didn't ever want to hurt anybody, Agent Booth. Never."

"I find that hard to believe," Brennan said plainly, cutting into the conversation. "You shot and killed four people, one of them a four year old child, because of a familial disagreement that happened thirty years ago, that did not even involve you."

"How can you say it didn't involve me?" Carl croaked. "You have no idea, none. You don't know what I've been through, what we've been through, just trying to stay alive. I had to… I had to take care of my sister. I couldn't let her down again." Of all the curiosities pulsing through Booth's mind, one overtook all the others.

"Carl, what happened to Mary?" The question rang out almost like a sentencing rather than an inquiry, heavy and suffocating. The entire room was thick with it. Carl sighed loudly in response, taking his time before answering.

"If I tell you," he began slowly, "everything that happened… is there some way I can make sure she gets taken care of? I know I'm going to jail, Agent Booth. I don't want to but I know I am. But I don't want the death penalty. I don't want to die and leave Mary alone. I know I'll probably get life, but at least I'll be alive to know she's okay." Booth hesitated, then nodded.

"We'll figure out something," he promised. "We can make sure she's okay. But you have to tell us everything you know, Carl. Every last detail. The more you tell us, the better the chances are for a plea bargain. You might not have to spend the rest of your life in prison." Carl set his weak jaw, looking away from the agent and over to Brennan, who sat stoically on his other side, unconvinced so far of his intentions.

"I know I hurt your family," he said quietly to her. "I'm not trying to avoid takin' responsibility for that. But you have to understand… if it was your sister, you'd'a done the same."

"Start talking, Carl," Booth said. Carl nodded and cleared his throat, taking a few deep breaths of the oxygen to strengthen him before he began.

"Well, you know my parents were involved in the Strong Arm gang," he said. "Back in the seventies, with Max and Ruth Keenan. God, those names are infamous in my family, I'll tell you that. Anyway, when my mom got pregnant with me, that was about the same time the gang started fallin' apart, FBI on them hard and all. After she had Mary—we're two years apart—she said to my dad, let's get out, I know this is your family's issue but we're talking about our kids here. So my dad finally agreed and they left, moved to Florida from the Midwest. They didn't have any people here, but that was the point—it was far away and we had no ties, so we'd be that much harder to find.

"So they fell off the map, and we all got new names—John, Karen, Tony, and Mary Moretti. I can still remember my dad sittin' me up on the counter in our house, I was about four, and saying to me, 'You're Tony, okay? Tony. Tony. Tony.' I had to say it a million times." Brennan felt her chest tighten, fingers and toes going cold—hearing him talk about it was just like hearing Russ describe what their father had done to him. _Russ. Russ. Russ._

"I still don't know how they did it," Carl said. "But for a while it worked, and everything was fine. We were a normal family, my dad worked the farm and my mom took care of us, and we were just regular people.

"I guess that all changed when I was about nine. People started showin' up at the house at night, and dad started keepin' his gun loaded on the table. We'd get strange calls, calls I didn't understand, people tellin' me to tell my daddy to call 'who he needed to call.' I didn't ever understand what that meant. I guess he did, though, 'cause he told me to stop picking up the phone when it rang. Eventually he tore it right outta the wall altogether.

"Then one day a man showed up at the door and said he was my Uncle Vince." Brennan felt a crawling sensation up her spine when she heard the man's name. His face, the smell of his breath, came back to her in an instant. "I remembered him some, he was my dad's cousin, but I had been four when we moved away so I didn't know him good. I let him in the house one afternoon 'cause I remembered his face and he said he'd come down to visit us.

"My dad got home that afternoon and told me and Mary to leave, go down to the neighbor's down the road and play for a while. We didn't come home 'til after supper; we had a real nice lady who lived down the road by herself, she got lonely and liked to have us over to eat with her. Anyway, that's not important. Vince was gone when we got home but dad was so mad, and scared, and I don't know what else. I'd never seen him like that before. I asked him what was wrong, and he said if I ever saw Uncle Vince again I wasn't allowed to let him in the house, or even talk to him. Just to run."

_Dad said if you ever see this man, take your sister and hide._ Brennan heard Russ's words echoing through her head, and she had to shake it slightly to force herself into the present.

"I didn't know why, but I just nodded and said yes sir. It was another year before we ever saw him again." Booth took no notes, but paid rapt attention to every word that came out of the man's mouth as the story unfurled before them. Brennan, too, was captivated by his tale—mostly by the eerie similarity to her own family history. She had to shake herself mentally as she kept drawing parallels between this man and her brother. _They're nothing alike,_ Brennan said to herself. _Russ never killed anyone._

_But your father did,_ a nagging voice in the back of her head reminded. _And he did it for you._ She banished it as Carl opened his mouth to continue his story.

"One afternoon me and Mary were walking home from the bus stop, after school. I was ten, she was about eight. The bus only went so far, and since we lived so far out we ended up walkin' about a mile from where the bus dropped us off to where our house was. Usually nobody bothered us, but that day a truck came up driving behind us, real slow like it was following us. Finally I turned around to see who was inside… it was Uncle Vince, and some man I didn't recognize.

"I remembered what my dad said about him, and to run if we ever saw him… but I was only ten, you know? So I just stood there, I was kind of… frozen, I guess, with fear. Uncle Vince asked me how I was doing, and I didn't say anything. Then he said, didn't your momma raise you with better manners than that?" Carl stopped suddenly, closing his eyes and swallowing hard as if there were something stuck in his throat. There was nearly a full minute of silence before he finally spoke again.

"It just happened so fast," he whispered. "The guy, the one I didn't know, he threw his door open and he jumped out and just… he just snatched her up."

"Mary?" Booth asked. Carl nodded, tears running down his splotchy cheeks.

"I was just… I just stood there, I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe. I just watched them pull her into the truck and speed off. I just watched."

"What happened to her?" Brennan asked, unable to help herself. Carl pressed his thumb and index finger into the corners of his eyes, tugging on the IV that pierced his veins.

"I don't… I'm not sure," he admitted. "We never really talked about it. She was gone for three days, and when they finally let her go—dumped her on some side road about a mile from our house—she looked almost dead. Someone, some woman driving home from her night shift, found her standing on the side of the road, barely able to walk, covered in blood and bruises. They beat her so hard she could barely stand, and they… oh God." Carl could not continue at that point, bursting into heaving tears. The heart rate on his monitor skyrocketed as he hyperventilated, struggling to catch his breath as he sobbed.

After several minutes, Carl finally calmed himself down to the point where conversation was possible, and with some gentle prodding from Booth he continued the tale.

"They left a note in her pocket," Carl sniffled. "Said if we told the cops, they'd come back and do worse. As if they could do worse… killing her would've been better than what they did to her during those three days. It would've been kinder."

"So the police were never involved?" Booth asked. Carl shook his head.

"No," he said. "My parents were too afraid, I guess. They were afraid for us, and them. They knew Vince and his guys meant business, and if they didn't start cooperating and working with them… well, they made it pretty fucking clear."

"And at that point, that was when your parents became involved with the underground activity again?" he asked.

"Yeah," Carl said. "I guess they must have, for a while anyway. Mom pulled Mary out of school, started home schooling her. They let me keep going, I guess so people wouldn't suspect anything. So we would look normal on the outside. They kept up with the farm, only dad started to disappear for a few days at a time, here and there, and came back terrible. Wrecked. He would just get home and drink until he passed out… he couldn't even think about what he was doing anymore.

"Finally I guess he couldn't take it anymore—dad wasn't ruthless like Vince and them, he wasn't made to kill—and they stopped. Just stopped. I got my GED when I was sixteen, Mary was fourteen, and we just stopped living. Mom left the house every once in a while for necessities, but besides for that we really never left the property. They were so scared, and I was old enough I guess, I was scared too."

"How old were you when your parents were murdered?" Brennan asked.

"Twenty," Carl answered. "I had actually moved out, gone up nearer to the city when I was eighteen to try and find work, you know? Thought I could start in construction or something, work my way up. But then I got the call… both of my folks, shot dead in their beds."

"And Mary?" Booth asked.

"They let her be," Carl said, almost with awe. "Dunno why, she was right upstairs sleeping the whole time, but they let her be. Anyway, I moved back after that, to take care of her. She just… mom had been taking care of her, ever since what happened, and she really couldn't be on her own. She don't know how."

"You feel responsible for what happened to her that day," Booth said, knowing the guilt that lay heavily on the man. Carl stared vaguely at a spot on the wall across the room.

"I just stood there, Agent Booth," he said quietly. "He stepped right out of the truck, grabbed her around the arm, and yanked her in… and I just stood there."

"You were ten years old," Brennan said, brows furrowed. "A ten year old boy couldn't possibly go up against a fully grown man and expect to win."

"But I could'a tried," Carl said. "I could'a tried and I didn't, I just stood there."

"You were scared," Booth said. "Any child would've been. Most adults would've been. You can't blame yourself."

"I can and I will," Carl said plainly. "What happened to her is my fault, that's why I came back to take care of her. After what I let happen to her… every day, for the rest of her life, she lost because of me. It's my fault." Booth dropped his eyes to the ground, counting the tiles briefly before he took a breath and continued the conversation.

"After your parents' death, how long was it before they contacted you?" Booth asked.

"About a month," he said. "Gave us time to grieve, I guess. That's when the phone calls started. Dunno how they got the number, we were unlisted, but they did. Finally I agreed to meet with Dave, since Vince was on parole and couldn't leave Virginia, and he brought the message. Work for us, or you both die. Go to the cops, and we'll set you up for the murder of your parents. The investigation on their death never got far… never found the gun, never found anyone suspicious, there were just no clues left.

"Anyway, they said they had all the evidence—the gun, bunch of false statements, all that. Said they had people down there who would testify against me, tell the court that I planned to kill my folks so I could inherit their estate. Dad made a lot of money in his spare time, I guess. We had a lot in the bank for just a couple of pig farmers. The gun they took to kill my parents was the one that hung up in our living room. It was perfect, everything looked perfect for it to be me. All they had to do was point the finger."

"And you didn't want to go to jail," Booth said.

"I didn't want Mary to be alone," Carl emphasized. "Sure, I didn't want to go to jail for something I didn't do, but I was more worried about what would happen to her. What they'd do to her if I wasn't there to protect her."

"So they blackmailed you into it, and that's when you started working for them," Booth summarized. Carl nodded.

"About ten years ago, yeah," he said. "I've been doin' odd jobs for them ever since. Whenever they need something set up, cleaned up, covered up… that's me. And particularly when they wanted Ruth's family to feel it… then they usually used me, to make it more personal. They really never got over what all went down between Max, Ruth, Ruth's cousin Charlie, and Vince's brother Rick. Charlie's name was mud in that family, you so much as mentioned it and you could get hurt."

Booth sighed in a long, heavy way, leaning back into the small bedside chair and rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands. This was a lot of information to take in at once, but all of it fell exactly into place. Every gap in the case, every question mark he had, had been filled in and answered. Everything was where it was supposed to be, except…

"Where are the remaining McVicar brothers, Carl?" he asked. "Dave and Harvey, your father's cousins. Can you tell us where they are?" Carl sighed.

"I really don't know," he said. "They don't usually talk directly to me, it's through other people. I can give you them, though. As many of them as you want. All of 'em. I told you, I'm coming clean." Booth felt an excited shock of electricity ripple through his body—they were breaking into the web, the entire network of underground criminals operating in the North Florida area. This could potentially be a huge crime ring, and could eventually lead to the capture of the last remaining McVicars. They would be behind bars, and finally, after thirty years, Brennan's family would be safe.

"Thank you, Carl, for cooperating," Booth said, rising from his seat. "Agent Miller is the field agent down here who specializes in the McVicar files, he eats, drinks, and breathes the stuff. He'll be down later today to talk to you. You tell him everything you told me, and you might just walk." Carl looked neither pleased nor displeased with the news, giving a neutral nod. Booth tilted his head towards the door and Brennan followed.

As she passed through the doorway, Brennan paused. She turned around and faced Carl McVicar one last time.

"It… it wasn't your fault," she said. Carl looked up at her with quizzical brows.

"What?" he asked.

"What happened to Mary," she said. "It wasn't your fault. She doesn't blame you for it. If she did, she wouldn't have saved your life. She doesn't blame you." With that she left, closing the door gently behind her.


	34. Love is a Beautiful Thing

**A/N:** This is it... the final chapter. I actually had tears in my eyes when I wrote the last sentence. I don't know if that makes me committed, or just pathetic, or both, but I am really going to miss this story. But there will be plenty of time for musing over my thoughts in the epilogue... for now, the final installment of this story. Enjoy.

* * *

_Through many dangers, toils and snares  
I have already come  
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far  
and Grace will lead me home_

_

* * *

_

Booth was rummaging through the drawer next to the stove, looking for the ice cream scooper that Lydia swore was in there somewhere, when he heard his phone ringing from the couch. He tiptoed across the carpet, dripping water everywhere and hoping that Lydia wouldn't notice before it dried. He picked up the phone and flipped it open, holding it gingerly with wet fingers.

"Hello?"

"Agent Booth?"

"Agent Miller," he said, recognizing the man's deep, rolling voice.

"I told you, man, Omar," the man said with a laugh. "Did you make it back to D.C. alright?"

"Haven't left yet, actually," Booth admitted.

"That so?" Agent Miller said. "I thought you and your partner were rarin' to get out of Florida."

"We are," he said, "but her cousin's kid's birthday is today, so we decided to stay an extra day to celebrate with her family."

"Ah," Agent Miller said. "Well, I won't keep you long then. I just wanted you to know that I talked to Carl Jr. last night after y'all left, got a bunch of names, and started working on that."

"Did you guys cut a deal, then?" Booth asked.

"I told him we'd go tit for tat," he said. "If we could use the information he gave us to bring down at least one of the remaining McVicar brothers, he'd walk. Until then though, he's ours."

"That's great," Booth said, finally finding the scooper in the very back of the drawer. "What about his sister, any news on her?"

"Well, she's unfit to testify either way," Agent Miller said. "After what Carl told you about what happened to her, we relayed the info to the psychiatrists working with her, and they gave her a hell of a diagnosis. Severe post-traumatic stress disorder with catatonic features, and panic disorder with agoraphobia. I guess after the attack on her when she was a kid, she just… lost it."

"Who could blame her," Booth said under his breath, grimacing at the memory of Carl's face when he described his sister's assault. "Can they help her?"

"Well, they won't discuss her treatment with me," Agent Miller said. "Only the diagnosis, for legal purposes. Apparently though, she was lucid enough to give them permission to release her medical information to Carl, so they talked to him about what was happening and he told me what he knew. He said they're gonna start her on some meds and heavy-duty therapy and see what happens. Get this, the psychiatrist said he's been working at the hospital for thirty-six years, he's ancient, and he's never seen a case of PTSD so bad." Booth nodded even though the other agent couldn't see him—he wasn't surprised, given what he had seen of Mary's condition. He only hoped they weren't too late to give her back the rest of her life.

"I'm just glad she's getting help," Booth said.

"Mhmm," Agent Miller agreed. "Well, I'll let you get back to your birthday shindig, I just wanted to keep you in the loop on it."

"Thanks, I appreciate it," Booth said. "Keep me updated if anything comes up about the other McVicar brothers."

"Will do," Agent Miller said. "See you around, Agent Booth." Booth hung up with the agent, then immediately flipped his phone open and dialed a well-known number.

"Dr. Lance Sweets," the voice said, sounding deceptively professional.

"Hey Sweets, it's Booth."

"Agent Booth, wow, long time no see," Sweets said.

"Yeah, yeah," Booth said, brushing off the pleasantries. "Listen, I got a question for you. What do you know about 'post traumatic stress disorder with catatonic features' and 'panic disorder with agoraphobia'?"

"Well, what do you want to know?" Sweets asked.

"Can they be cured?" he asked. "Like if someone has them, do they ever go away or do they have them forever?"

"Well, PTSD and panic disorder with agoraphobia are all anxiety disorders, and anxiety disorders are highly responsive to therapy. I hesitate to use the word 'cured', but they can definitely be treated successfully and the patient can go about their daily life. Why?"

"Even if it's really bad?" Booth asked.

"Even if it's really bad," Sweets said. "Who has catatonic PTSD and panic disorder with agoraphobia? That's a pretty intense diagnosis."

"Long story," he said. "I'll explain when we get home, if we ever get home. Thanks, Sweets." Before Sweets could ask anything else of the agent he hung up the phone, feeling much lighter. He left the phone on the kitchen counter as he exited into the yard, where the entire family was gathered loudly around a collection of pushed together fold-out tables. Max sat in a folding yard chair at one end, still somewhat weak but joking and laughing as if nothing had ever happened to him.

It was like nothing had ever happened to them, Booth thought as he stood back from the family clan for a moment, drinking in the scene. But it had—everything had. Murder, grief, betrayal, revelation, loss, gain, happiness, anger, the entire gamut of the emotional spectrum had been played over and over in just two weeks. Emotions and situations some people never faced in their lifetimes, this family had taken in stride.

His eyes fell on Brennan, standing between a still bandaged but up and moving Sarah Leigh and a tired but happy Charlene. Charlene balanced baby Bethany on her hip, and for once her eyes weren't blinking furiously. The moment she heard that Carl McVicar had been caught, she closed her eyes for a full minute, absorbing the information. They hadn't ticked once since.

It was Brennan, he thought, who had stretched and grown and endured probably the most of all during the two weeks of insanity. A family she had never known had absorbed her like a giant amoeba, sucking her into their core and making her one of their own. Her father had nearly died, and honestly, if Charlene's Explorer hadn't been so well built, she could have too. Booth felt a momentary surge of loyalty towards American-made cars that he hadn't sensed since the FBI took away his Ford and stuck him with a Toyota. Not that he minded the Sequoia, it got great gas mileage compared to his old ride, but there was just something less patriotic about it.

_What?_ she mouthed silently from the distance, catching his eyes and realizing that he was staring vacantly at her. He snapped out of reverie and shook his head, joining the mob.

"Alright, who's got a lighter?" Molly asked. Five Bic lighters were thrust into the air, and she took the nearest one from her husband, who had been firmly by her side for the entire day, arm frequently wrapped around her waist or fingers looped through the belt loops of her shorts. Booth retracted his previous thought to himself—perhaps it had been Eric who had undergone the greatest change of all. Change enough to see how easy it was to lose what was right in front of you if you held it too loosely, regarded it too lackadaisically, and didn't treat it with the tender care it deserved. What good is loving someone, if they don't know it?

It was with that thought that Booth wandered to the other side of the table, losing control of the smile that broke across his face as he approached Brennan from behind, enclosing her waist in his arms. She quirked her brow at him over her shoulder but smiled, settling back into his bare chest and resting her hands on top of his arms, drumming her delicate fingers against them.

"You didn't dry off, I'm surprised," she observed, noting the river water that still clung to him. "I would've thought you would, given your irrational fear of necrotizing fasciitis." Booth felt an involuntary shudder rise up his spine.

"Don't say that," he hissed.

"What?" she asked quietly, their voices easily overtaken by the rowdiness of the children and slightly liquored adults surrounding them. "Necrotizing fasciitis?"

"Yes," he said. "It gives me the willies." She laughed, the sound welling up from deep in her throat like a spring, and he couldn't help but smile despite the creepy-crawly sensation traveling across his skin.

Molly lit the candles on the cake and after a moment of serious contemplation, Eleanor blew all six of them out. Cheers abounded and within ten minutes everyone was seated somewhere, in a chair or on the grass, occupied with sticky icing and drippy, melting Neapolitan ice cream. It was in this semi-quiet moment that Brennan excused herself into the house briefly. She returned with two envelopes in hand, and handed them to Molly.

"Here," she said. "I wanted to get Eleanor something for her birthday."

"Temperance, you didn't have to do that," Molly said, shaking her head. "She's just happy that y'all decided to stay, it was all she talked about last night. _Aunt Temperance is gonna be there, Aunt Temperance stayed just to come to my birthday party…_ she just loves you to death." Brennan couldn't help the smile that touched her lips.

"I'm quite fond of her too," she said. "That's why I wanted to make sure I got her something she could use." Molly looked down at the two marked envelopes in her hand, her brows slowly drawing together.

"One of these is for Brandon," she observed. Brennan nodded. "His birthday ain't 'til January."

"Well, I didn't assume that I would be back by then, and besides, I'd rather give them both to you at once. Well, to them, but also to you." Molly regarded her with a peculiar look, sliding her finger underneath the flap of the envelope marked 'Eleanor' and tearing it open gently. She pulled out the piece of paper inside, eyes tracing over it slowly, and her face dropped.

"I can't take this," she said, shaking her head. "Temperance, I can't…"

"Yes you can," Brennan said firmly. "You said you wanted both of your children to go to college. That should be enough to start a college fund for each of them. I added a little more to Brandon's, to make up for the interest Eleanor will accrue over four years on…" Brennan's economic rambling was cut off by her cousin throwing her arms around her, crushing her in a hug. She also began bawling, loudly, which attracted the attention of the majority of their family.

"Hon, what's wrong?" Eric asked, approaching the two women. Molly simply thrust the check towards him, still sobbing with inconsolable happiness. His eyes widened when he saw the amount written in the box, and he shook his head.

"We can't take that," he said, a perfect echo of Molly's sentiment. "That's too much."

"Eric, I'm a New York Times best seller," Brennan pointed out. "In case you've forgotten, I make six figures. This is not a lot of money to me. I would be honored if you'd take it." She lowered her voice, then added, "Your children need to go to college." He gave her an almost heavy look, then looked down hesitantly at the check in his hand. He sighed in a way that was part resignation, part relief. He closed the space between them and pulled Brennan into a hug, something she had gotten almost used to with this family over the past two weeks.

"The only reason I never been one to talk to 'em about college," he whispered into her ear as he hugged her, "is 'cause I didn't want 'em to grow up and be disappointed when we couldn't afford it."

"Now you can," Brennan said. "Please take this." He let her go and nodded, and Molly let loose a fresh wave of sobs.

Half an hour later when Brennan let herself into the house for a cold coke, Sarah Leigh followed her. The young woman leaned into the kitchen doorway, surveying her cousin in an almost curious way. It was not the hostile surveillance of the first time they had met, but more of an observation.

"That was a real nice thing you did for Molly," she said.

"Eleanor is a very smart little girl," Brennan said. "And Brandon seems like an intelligent child, too. Not only would they be poorly served, but the greater community would suffer a loss if they were unable to attend a four-year university and obtain a degree. When people possess an innate intelligence, they should be able to explore it to its fullest extent, in order to make the most positive impact on their society."

"You make it sound like you're making an investment," Sarah Leigh laughed.

"I am," Brennan said. "I'm investing in their future, and the future of our family." Sarah Leigh raised her eyebrows.

"_Our_, huh?" she said with a smirk. "So you'll keep us after you leave?" Brennan smiled and shrugged.

"I don't know," she said. "I suppose, since I'm going to be putting in a significant fiscal investment, I should at least seek an annual review to make sure the money is being appropriated wisely." Sarah Leigh belted out a laugh that made her wince with pain.

"Oh my God, you just used humor," she said, wheezing and leaning with one hand against the kitchen counter, unable to control her laughter despite the sharp pain it was causing her. "Oh my… oh, God, that was perfect. I never thought I'd see the day."

"I don't know why people think that is so amusing," she said, shaking her head as she exited the house, a howling Sarah Leigh following her. "My editor says I am very funny. Well, amusing, she said, not funny. I suppose there could be a difference…"

"What are you rambling about?" Booth asked, intercepting her half-way between the yard and the dock where the family had mostly congregated.

"My sense of humor," she said. "Or, I don't know, lack thereof."

"Well, you are amusing," Booth said, grabbing her hand in his as they walked towards the dock.

"Is that the same thing as funny?" she asked. He made a face.

"Not really," he said.

"What is the difference?" she asked. He shrugged.

"I don't know, it's sort of an implied thing," he said. She harrumphed.

"I don't know what that means," she said, the hot wooden dock beams burning her bare feet as she walked with him down to the end, sun blazing unfettered overhead. It was the perfect day for a party on the water, undoubtedly.

"I know," he said, leaning in and kissing her on the temple. She turned and let his lips catch hers, immersing herself in the moment before she heard her name called out, accompanied by a chorus of hoots and whistles, and a few _eww_'s from the children.

"Y'all c'mere, we're all gonna jump in," Mike said, waving them over as everyone began lining up on the edge of the dock. They all packed in shoulder to shoulder—Molly, Eric, Brandon and Eleanor, Mike and his kids Maggie and Danny, who had returned the day before from their grandparents' place, John, Charlene, and even Darren, who had showed up late and exhausted, but smiling—their toes lined up to the edge of the wooden structure.

The line-up parted in the center so the three of them could squeeze in, Brennan squished between Booth on her right and Sarah Leigh on her left. She scooted towards the edge so that her toes hung over, and when she leaned forward slightly she could peer down into the river water, splashing up against the dock piles, refracted sunlight glimmering on the surface.

At that moment they all simultaneously reached for the hands next to them, grabbing onto the one beside them, seemingly for dear life. And it was. She realized in that moment, with one of Sarah Leigh's small, warm hands in her left and Booth's large, rough palm enclosing her right, that her dear life was in her grasp in that moment. Everything dear about her life, everything she had come to love in a true, unfathomable way, was right there, standing on the edge, in the palms of her hands. She could wrap her fingers around it, feel it breathing next to her. It was so tangible. It was so present.

Then they jumped, one holding the other, one pulling the other into the abyss, hands grasped tightly. Never letting go.

_Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound  
That saved a wretch like me  
I once was lost, but now I'm found  
Was blind, but now I see._


	35. Epilogue: Before We Turn to Stone

_Let's take a better look  
Beyond a story book  
And see our souls are all we own  
Before we turn to stone_

_Let's go to sleep with clearer heads  
And hearts too big to fit our beds  
And maybe we won't feel so alone  
Before we turn to stone..._

_- Turn to Stone, Ingrid Michaelson_

* * *

Wow. I honestly don't have any other words right now to describe how I feel about finishing that story. I really didn't know where it was going when I started it seven (seven!) months ago, and the outline of an idea that I did have went out the window by about ten chapters in.

There were some basic themes, though, that did manage to make their way throughout the story intact. One of them was, obviously, the name. "The Family in the Tree" had multiple meanings, and I'm not going to go into them because I think that if I did, it would take away from it. So if you got it, awesome. If you didn't... well, it's okay. We don't all read as heavily into fanfic as others. But there is definitely more than one way to be a family, and more than one way to be 'in a tree', I will say that much.

I was also thinking heavily about the concept of morality, and moral relativity, while I was writing this. What does it mean to be moral, to have morals, and what do they really mean when faced with tough situations? When is it okay to break them, and if you can bend a moral code or break it entirely, does it even exist? When you found out that three people had been shot and hung from a tree, it sounded horrible... when Max was shot on the side of the road, it sounded horrible... but there are two sides to every story, aren't there? Didn't you forgive Eric for waht he had to do? And even though you spent something like 30 chapters waiting for some sick, ruthless killer to be captured... how do you feel about Carl now? Didn't he do just what Eric was doing? What Max did? Does that make his actions less heinous? Is there a 'degree' to which murder is considered 'bad'?

These aren't just questions of fiction, but questions we encounter in daily life, and as someone pursuing a degree in Anthropology it's something I think about a lot. Cultural relativism, and the trappings of that relativity. What makes something moral? Is it innately good or evil, and if it is, where does that 'innateness' come from in the first place? Maybe a higher power. Maybe not. We treat these ideas we have of morals and ethics like they are absolute and concrete, but they aren't. Ask a devout Muslim whether a woman can show her arms or not, how morally acceptable that is. Ask an Orthodox Jew if men and women can pray together. Ask someone who calls themselves a Christian whether or not the death penalty is acceptable for someone who murders a child. That is a hard question, and while one aspect of their moral code would say no, the other, more flawed, human aspect might be inclined to give them a swift drop and a southern stop, so to speak.

I guess all I'm trying to say with this half-coherent rambling (it is past 2 AM as I write this) is that we should really examine our motives, and our ethical code, and what we draw up as our morals and what they really mean to us, not just as individuals but as members of society. Why are certain things 'moral' or 'immoral', and when we draw hard lines like that, are we actually helping ourselves or hurting ourselves? Do we want to live in a society with a moral absolute, and if so, whose? How do you choose? And if not, do we regard any morals with any sort of salt? How do we decide which ones are okay to break, and when, and how often? When does it go from being a moral standard, to something that crosses our minds in passing as we do the total opposite?

I think Sarah Leigh is a perfectly moral person, but many would disagree. She has tattoos. She has piercings. She has sex. She shows her cleavage and she swears like a sailor and she works at a bar with low-lifes (or people who society has deemed to be low-lifes, based on this wavering concept of morality we hold onto) but I think she's a damn upright person, push come to shove. I think a lot of you would agree, but if you saw a girl who looked like Sarah Leigh walking down the street in your real life... what would you think of her? Really, what would your immediate impression of her be? _Tramp. Slut. White trash._

There is a lot more to what makes someone 'good' or 'bad' than appearances. But at the same time, Sarah Leigh picked up a gun and was ready to kill a man. And I don't think a single one of you stopped at any point during that scene and thought to yourself, "She shouldn't do that because it's morally unacceptable to kill another human being." Maybe you were thinking, "She shouldn't do that because she's going to get hurt", but that was probably the extent of your concerns. I know I'm making a lot of assumptions of you here, but it's likely true. Does that make Sarah Leigh less moral than Eric, who knew exactly who his target was, but was doing it because his wife and children's lives were directly threatened? Sarah Leigh didn't know who she was going after. But wouldn't you regard her in higher moral esteem? Why?

Okay, I'm really rambling now, and it's getting annoying I'm sure. I just think it's such an important question to ask, of yourself and others, and the world at large. What makes someone good or bad? What is a moral motivation for an immoral act, and if the motive is appropriate, is the act too? Under what circumstances? These are kind of big thoughts, especially for fanfiction, but I don't believe that fanfic has to stoop to some sub-human level of intellectual investment just because it's fanfic.

Circumstances have a lot to do with it. I feel like that parallel between Carl McVicar Jr's immediate family (his parents and Mary) and Brennan's immediate family (her parents and Russ) was the most important, for that reason. Their circumstances were similar, the moral questions demanded of their parents and of them were similar, but look how differently they turned out. Our choices define us more than anything. Albus Dumbledore said that much more eloquently in one of the Harry Potter books, actually. _"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." _The choices we make under the circumstances we're in, they reveal so much more about our morality and who we are than the way we dress, or what we say we believe in, or how we identify ourselves. Choices, based on a shifting moral code that varies not only cross-culturally, but from individual to individual, day to day, moment to moment. We seem like painfully indefinite creatures.

I am stopping now, for your sake and mine. As you know if you have read any of my previous stories, all of my chapter titles are clips of lyrics from songs. I picked each one carefully to suit the chapter, and I always hope that a few of you notice. I think you do. :) Now I will list those songs (or in some instances, poems), in order of appearance. They are all good songs and I hope that you might take the time to listen to them if you are looking for some good music.

1. On My Way - Phil Collins (Brother Bear Soundtrack)  
2. Mothers of the Disappeared - U2  
3. Two Worlds, One Family - Phil Collins (Tarzan Soundtrack)  
4. These Are My People - Rodney Atkins  
5. Up! - Shania Twain  
6. Secrets - Tears for Fears  
7. Life is Short - Butterfly Boucher  
8. You'll Be in My Heart - Phil Collins (Tarzan Soundtrack)  
9. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin  
10. Once Upon a Broken Heart - The Beu Sisters  
11. When I Get Where I'm Going - Brad Paisley f/ Dolly Parton  
12. Waiting on the World to Change - John Mayer  
13. Photograph - Nickelback  
14. Uncertainty - The Fray  
15. Rooftops - Melissa McLelland  
16. Policy of Truth - Depeche Mode  
17. Policy of Truth - Depeche Mode  
18. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Poem) by Samuel Taylor Coleridge  
19. The Truth About Heaven - Armor for Sleep  
20. Portions for Foxes - Rilo Kiley  
21. With a Little Help From My Friends - Joe Crocker  
22. Inside Your Heaven - Carrie Underwood  
23. Shadow on the Sun - Audioslave  
24. Love Lockdown - Kanye West  
25. Away From the Sun - 3 Doors Down  
26. Stand - Rascal Flatts  
27. I Am Weary (Let Me Rest) - The Cox Family (cover)  
28. Use Somebody - Kings of Leon  
29. Big Machine - The Goo Goo Dolls  
30. Float On - Modest Mouse  
31. A Beautiful Lie - 30 Seconds to Mars  
32. The Con - Tegan and Sara  
33. Calling All Cars - Senses Fail  
34. Love is a Beautiful Thing - Phil Vassar  
35. Turn to Stone - Ingrid Michaelson

I really do leave this story behind with a heavy, but satisfied, sigh. I loved writing it. I will miss it dearly, and hearing from you. I do hope to hear from you again in the future, though... that was your hint to put me on your author alerts if you liked this story... haha, I'm subtle, I know. But really, this story has been just such a fun, enjoyable experience for me as a writer, and I really hope you got at least half as much pleasure out of reading it. It was a lot different than any other case fic or character-driven multi-chaptered fic I've written in the past... but a good kind of different, I think. Branching out. Covering new terrain, so to speak. I hope to do more of that in the future.

But now it's time for this to end. Thank you so much for reading, reviewing, and just being there with me throughout these past 34 chapters. This wouldn't be worth it without knowing you guys are there reading and enjoying, rooting for them, feeling their pain, laughing at their joy... getting your feedback makes it worthwhile. You make this so much more enjoyable for me, and I hope you know how grateful I am for that support, companionship even.

Remember what is right, and what is true, and what it means to be those things. Remember to look at both sides of the story before you judge. And remember to cover up any open wounds the next time you hop into the St. John's River! ;)

Love,

K.E.


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